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MOVEMENTS 




M. J. O'DONOGHUE 
M.A., B.LITT. (DUB.) 



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A (ilributr 

to Mv iFrirnJj 

SliTp ^lm. iEamonn ip llalrra. M.A.IC.II.i. 

PreBi^pnt of llip 3rialf Sppublir, 

Apoatip of iFrppftom 

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Srlmtr^ <£vat\tr of tl]p (Brltir iSarc 

Silirougljout H}e liorlft 



Introduction 



This little book will fill a long felt want in 
the field of information on the Irish Cause. There 
has been so much misrepresentation of the Irish 
Cause in the columns of the press and in magazine 
articles, all specially paid for and written for the 
purpose of false propaganda, that it is not to be 
wondered at that we meet Americans, for the most 
part broad-minded and fair, turning a deaf ear to 
the pleadings of the most worthy cause presented 
to our people. 

We have always - found that sincere lovers of 
liberty, real Americans, no matter what their race 
or lineage, are always willing to accept the truth 
and espouse the cause of right. To such I say, read 
the following pages of this little book and I am sure 
you will come to but one conclusion : — Ireland has 
the right to her sovereignty and, therefore, must 
be free. 

It is with sincere pleasure that we write these 
few words introducing a little work which we feel 
will accomplish much for a Great Cause. 

» F. X. McCABE, C. M. 

Armistice Day, 1919. 

President De Paul University. 



Contents 



Men and Movements 

The Cult of the An^ln Saxon 

Sinn Fein and Its Founders 

The Irish Dramatic Movement 

The Gelt in America 

The Irish Fairyland 

The Shuiler 

The Poor Old Man 

The Go-Operative Movement 

Phases of Modern Spiritism 

The Men of the Hour 



Edited and Published by 

M. J. O'Donoghue 

Lecturer at College of St. Teresa 

WINONA, MINN. 



Printed and Bound by 

St. Mary's Training School, Printing Department 

Des Plaines, 111. 

Dl21 



Men and Moa enients 

Eveiy century has its land marks of remarkable men and more or less 
far-reaching movements. They are as it were periodical ebullitions of 
the human intellect in the road of civilization and human progress. Men 
of towering intellect and outstanding personality create the movements 
and the movements thus created become the material of universal history. 
The present century will no doubt be a beacon light to future generations 
for having given birth to the four great movements of modern times : The 
Sinn Fein movement ; the Dramatic movement ; the " New Revelation or 
Spiritualist movement; and the Co-operative movement. 

It is perhaps one of the ironies of history that the most oppressed, 
opposed and vilified races in the world today, should have cradled and 
fostered these movements, and given birth to most ol the men who are 
the acknowledged leaders of them. The Celtic race having failed by 
force of arms "to win a place in the sun," overshadowed by the might and 
splendor of a mighty" empire, has thrown forth its challenge for world 
recognition by the splendid intellect, idealism, culture, and mental 
superiority of its people. 

The "Fourteen Points" of President Wilson, to vindicate which the 
world rose in arms against Prussian Militarism, were embodied ten years 
ago in the doctrines of the Sinn Fein movement. The "Rights of Small 
Nations," "Freedom of the Seas" the League of Nations Covenant, were 
household words in Dublin, while King and Kaiser were still dining 
from the gold plate stolen from the Irish Parliament, at Buckingham 
Palace, and their diplomats were partitioning Africa, Asia, and China 
among themselves. The doctrine of the freedom of small nations will 
forever be associated with the names of Pearse, Griffith and De Valera. 
History repeats itself, and demoralized Europe is today looking to the 
spiritual store-house of the Emerald Isle, as it looked in the Dark Ages, 
to rescue it from the chaos of moral and mental ruin to which British 
Imperialism and German Philosophy have reduced it. 

The acknoAvledged leaders of European drama such as Maeterlinck, 
Ibsen, Strindberg and Shaw, are as we know, men who do not profess to 
believe in the existence of a personal God. Their teachings must there- 
fore be extremely injurious- to the present rising generation. They scoff 
at the sacred institutions of marriage, family life and all old fashioned 
religion. Yet thousands of people in this glorious land of freedom 
and high ideals gloat over the productions of these pagans, and talk by 
the hour on their art and philosophy. But thinking men everywhere 
realize the baneful effects of their teaching on the young generation of 
today, and are turning for higher conceptions of life and things eternal 
to the drama of Ireland. The success of the Irish Dramatic Movement, 
then, is due to its wholesome philosophy and sane religious teaching, as 
well as the high moral tone of the plays. The Irish dramatist has a 
spiritual store-house to draw on, large enough to satisfv the spiritual 
cravings of all mankind. 

Closely linked with these movements are the phenomena of Spiritual- 

.PP. 9 1920 



ism, which is now the craze among fashionable circles in England and 
America. The Spiritist movement is nothing new. The phenomena of 
the Seance were well known in Ireland in the days of St. Patrick. The 
Chroniclers describe for us how the Druids produced identical pheno- 
mena in the presence of the great apostle himself, and how Patrick by 
his incantations drove the evil spirits to flight. The Irish of today have 
innumerable prayers and incantations for counteracting the evil agencies 
of these spirit intelligences. In view of what is known today of spiritis- 
tic phenomena, most people will be astonished to learn that the Irish 
peasant has been acquainted for centuries with the existence of spirit 
intelligences, and their varied manifestations and manipulation of the 
human mind; and in order to meet this terrible foe of Christian belief 
he has evolved a spirit world of his own, backed by all his deep faith in a 
personal God, to combat their agencies. The Irish belief in Fairies 
then, is not a superstitious practice, but the strong conviction of a highly 
intellectual and spiritual race in the existence and power of a world of 
evil and malignant spirits. 

All Scientific investigators of psychic phenomena now admit the exist- 
ence of spirit intelligences who can exercise extraordinary power over 
the. human mind and the human organism, and whose teachings are en- 
tirely subversive of Christianity. The existence of these spirit agencies 
are well known, as I have said, to the Irish peasant who has created out 
of his own consciousness, supported by Divine Grace, all the mental and 
spiritual machinery necessary to combat the teachings of these spirit 
intelligences. There is nothing new then in Spiritism — ^no new doctrine, 
no new Revelation. As Dr. Raupert declares : ' ' The phenomena of Spirit- 
ism are no new discoveries of Science, or a new light which has come into 
the Avorld, but a revival in scientific and systematic form of that practice 
of necromancy and magic with which most pagan races were and are 
only too well acquainted, and which was discontinued wherever the 
light of true Christianity found entrance and belief." Furthermore it 
is the opinion of the same distinguished authority that much of the suffer- 
ings of the Irish people is indirectly due to these spirit agencies who 
display the most intense hatred to the Irish because of their great 
Faith, missionary zeal and unshakeable Christian belief. In this con- 
nection it is an interesting fact that the cult of spiritism finds its 
most congenial home among the English Tory Aristocracy, the hered- 
itary foes of the Gael. It is also an interesting fact that tho the two 
most distinguished disciples and investigators of the spiritist cult are 
Celts — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of London and Professor Crawford of 
Belfast — neither the seance nor the teachings of spiritism have found 
any foothold among the people of the Emerald Isle. 

Finally the Co-Operative Movement of which A. E. Russel, the Dublin 
poet, is the chief exponent, has already acquired a world wide reputation. 
Several European countries, including England itself, have sent delega- 
tions of experts to study and report on the Irish system. ^ The Farmer's 
Co-Operative League of the Dakotas is based on the principles of the Irish 
co-operative system and the success already attained by it is sufficient 
proof of the soundness of the economic principles underlying it. Ireland 
herself has made marvellous strides in industrial progress in recent 

Page Five 



years in spite of the oppressive measures of the British Parliament to 
kill the native manufactures. The Cork Industrial Association — a by- 
product of the Co-Operative Movement is known all over Europe and 
America, especially in connection with the establishment of a Ford 
motor factory in Cork. The Irish Republican Commonwealth thru the 
medium of its hundreds of clubs throughout the country is based on the 
co-operative system and the fact that all the military power of the 
British Empire cannot suppress it, is a proof that it is based on prin- 
ciples as fundamental as eternity itself, because it is a government of 
the people themselves. 

In opposition to the political and economic principles of the Irish Re- 
publican Commonwealth, is the super-imposed legislation of an alien 
parliament supported at the point of the bayonet. The Irish poor laws 
for instance constitute one of the greatest scandals of civilization. Large 
sums of money drawn from the pockets of the Irish poor are yearly 
appropriated by an alien government for the maintenance of institutions 
known as, "poor-houses" the inmates of which are chiefly tramps and 
derelicts from the slums and prisons of England and Scotland. To add 
to this scandalous perversion of civic legislation a large staff of officials 
called the local Government Board, is maintained from public money to 
run these institutions. Most of these high salaried officials are English- 
men and Scotchmen, who while the pleasant hours away at the notorious 
Kildare St. Club in Dublin. In my article entitled the ' ' Shinier, ' ' I have 
outlined the system by which Irish hospitality provides for the needs of 
the poor. No poor laws are needed in a land where true Christian Charity 
is practiced in its highest and most ideal form. 




Page Six 



The Cult of the Anglo Saxon 

(From America.) 

For many years past, in season and out of season, Americans have 
been assured by journalists and historians that we are an Anglo-Saxon 
people and that to the Anglo-Saxons we owe our civilization and demo- 
cratic institutions. Our national genius is Puritan, so the story runs, 
our very Constitution itself, writ in the blood of martyrs, is only a revised 
editionof Magna Charta. This falsification of American history has been 
common in this country and abroad for the past two or three decades. 
And so great is the power of a narrow press that men not of Anglo-Saxon 
origin are made to feel that they should protest their loyalty to America 
and attempt to reconcile their religious beliefs and practices to the absurd 
and preposterous claims of a supposed Anglo-Saxon nationalism. This 
servile protestation of a loyalty which is bred in our bone, would be ridic- 
ulous and childish were it not so tragic and unworthy a great race. 

Writing in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1896, Dr. Eliot, once 
of Harvard, states : 

"It is a great mistake to suppose that the process of assimilating 
foreigners began in the nineteenth century. The eighteenth century 
provided the Colonies with a great mixture of peoples although the 
English race then as now predominated. When the Revolution broke 
out there were already English, Scotch, Dutch, German, French, Portu- 
guese and Swedes in the Colonies." 

A reader of this article, noticing the strange omission of any men- 
tion of the Irish element, then the most numerous and powerful in the 
Colonies, called Dr. Eliot's attention to the matter, in a letter bristling 
with an array of convincing facts. In his reply Dr. Eliot wrote : 

"I shall have to confess that I omitted the Irish, because I did not 
know that they were an important element in the population of the 
Colonies in the eighteenth century. My ignorance of th^ early Trish 
population is doubtless due to provincialism." 

A very interesting admission in view of the fact that history gives am- 
ple testimonj^ of the great part played by the Irish in founding the Re- 
public and shaping its destinies. 

The first man killed in the Boston massacre, the first overt act of the 
Revolution, was Patrick Carr, an Irishman. Among those who assisted 
in pitching the tea into Boston harbor were Thompson and Hugh Max- 
well, both Irishmen. The capture of New Castle, the first fort taken in 
the Revolution was the work of Majors John Sullivan and John Langdon. 
For this exploit both were elected to Congress. Sullivan was appointed 
Brigadier-General and commanded the northern division of the Conti- 
nental Army. He became attorney general and twice governor of New 
Hampshire. His brother became governor of Massachusetts. John Stark, 
who led the New Hampshire men at Bunker Hill, was one of the most 
famous men in New England, while General Knox, an Irishmen, was 
Washington's most trusted adviser. Joseph Reed was private secretary to 
Washington. He was offered a bribe of $50,000 by the British to desert the 

Pase Seven 



cause of the Colonies, an offer he rejected with scorn. Colonel Fitzgerald 
was Washington's favorite aide-de-eamp. 

The famous Irish ''Brigade of Pennsylvania/' led by Colonels 
Wayne, Stuart, IrAvin and Butler, was the crack corps of the Conti- 
nental Army. It was selected by Washington to guard West Point after 
the discovery of Arnold's treason.^ Many of the famous engagements of 
the Revolution were led by Irishmen. Stark, at Bennington; Morgan, 
at Cowpens ; Wayne at Ston^y Point, and Andrew Pickens at Eutaw, ^e 
examples in point. The leading spokesmen at the first council of war, 
held by Washington at Cambridge in 1775, were Generals Richard Mont- 
gomery and Rieliiird Sullivan, and fully one-third of the active chiefs 
of Washington's army were of Irish birth or descent. William Gregg, 
who commanded the vanguard at Bennington, the Gibson Brothers, whose 
sharpshooters were called the ''Gibson Lambs;" Captain Jasper of Fort 
Moultrie; John Kelly, who covered Washington's retreat from Trenton; 
Colonel Alexander Martin of Brandywine fame, were all Irish. So were 
Generals Lewis, Roche, Hand, Clinton, Rutherford, Thompson and Butler. 
Twelve of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Irish. 
There were no Scotch-Irish in those days. That term, along with the 
Anglo-Saxon myth, was invented one hundred and twenty-five years 
later. 

In Collins' "Historj^ of Kentucky" it is stated that James McBride 
was the first man to enter its borders "paddling his canoe up the Ken- 
tucky river in 1743." In 1769 Daniel Boone was accompanied by James 
Mooney, John Finley and William Cool; and they in turn were followed 
by Captain Grattan, John Toole and John McManus. Captain Flynn, 
John Reilly and Francis Dunleavy were the founders of Columbia. Major 
McGarvy, McBride and Bolger with Boone were the great Indian fighters 
at that time in Kentucky. At least twenty fortified stations in Kentucky 
bear Irish names and eleven counties in Kentucky bear the names of 
Irishmen. There is hardly a Gaelic name in Ireland that was not repre- 
sented in Kentucky after the Revolution, so much so indeed that Henry 
Clay once declared that Kentucky was "the Ireland of America." 

When in 1765 Franklin gave up all hope on the passage of the Stamp 
Act it was cliarles Thompson, an Irishman, then Secretary of the Con- 
tinental Congress, who again rekindled the flame of freedom. "The sun 
of liberty is set," wrote Franklin, "and Americans must now light the 
lamps of industr}- and economy." Be assured, ansAvered Thompson, 
"We shall light torches of quite another kind." Thompson was one of 
the most noted men of his time and second only to Washington in popu- 
lar esteem. 

In the history of the "Hibernian Society and the Friendly Sous of 
St. Patrick," published in 1892, the authors give the names and official 
stations of 399 officials of the highest order furnished by this Society to 
the State and nation in early days. Among them were tliree Presidents 
of the United States. In passing it may be noted that AVasbington him- 
self, though not an Irishman, was a member of the Friendly Sons. 

Commodore Barry, the father of the American navy, was a Wexford 
man. Barry's prizes from one voyage alone, -(vhen sold in French ports, 
brought the American Government $3,000,000 at a time when money Avas 
sorely needed. In Abbot's "Blu'^ Jackets" it is recorded how Barry, 
with twenty-seven men in open row boats, captured the warship "Alert" 

Page Eight 



of ten g'uns, and four consort vessels, and took 500 prisoners. It was 
Barry's destruction of war and trading vessels that struck terror into the 
hearts of the enemy and finally compelled their merchants to petition 
the Government for peace. 

As a matter of fact the Anglo-Saxon element was an insignificant 
minority in the armies of the Revolution. Lecky, in his "History of the 
American Revolution," speaking of the -composition of the American 
army, says: 

' ' One of the most remarkable documents relating to the state of opin- 
ion in America is the examination of Galloway, late Speaker of the Penn- 
sylvania House of Representatives, by a committee of the House of Com- 
mons in June, 1779. Galloway was asked the following question : What in 
the service of Congress were they chiefly composed of, natives of Amer- 
ica? Or was the greatest part of them English, Irish or Scotch? Gall- 
oway answered: "The names and places of their nativity being taken 
down, I can answer the question with precision; scarcely one-quarter 
were natives of America ; about one-half were Irish. The other one-quart- 
er, English and Scotch." 

Plowden, the historian, declared: "It is a fact beyond question that 
most of the early successes in America were due to the vigorous exertions 
and prowess of the Irisii emigrants who bore arms in the cause." Lord 
Mountjoj^ declared in the House of Lords that England lost America by 
Ireland. 

Turning to the educational life of the Colonies in the eighteenth 
century and after, we find ample records of the same heroic and noble 
service rendered by the Irish in training the youth and forming the ideals 
of young America. Chief Justice Roger Taney and Webster, the lexi- 
cographer, were both trained by Irish tutors. Webster derived much 
of the inspiration for his monumental work from his teacher, Edward 
Evans. Francis Allison, called the "schoolmaster of Pennsylvania," 
was a native of Donegal. In 1741 he established -a school in New London. 
This was the original of the present Delaware College. Three of the 
Signers of the Declaration of Independence were his pupils. Later on 
he became head of tl e academy which grew into the "College of Phila 
delphia, " and is now the University of Philadelphia. An Irish colony 
was mainly responsible for the establishment and success of Lafayette 
College. The people of New Sweden, according to the historian Aili-61ius, 
were utterly illiterate until some Catholic teachers came from Ireland 
and established subscription schools "to teach children their letters." 
There is hardly a countj^ in Pennsylvania that, in the early days of its 
struggle, is not associated with the name of some Irish schoolmaster. 
John Hart, a native of Cavan, was one of the original founders of public 
education in Maryland. Chief Justice Taney was at one time his pupil 
and he alwaj^s spoke of him with grateful respect. In 1749 Robert 
Alexander founded Augusta Academy which later grew into Washington 
and Lee University. Archibald Murphy was the father of the "common 
schools" in North Carolina. Smith in his "History of Georgia" says 
the colonists in the early days had neither schools nor teachers "save 
now and then a wandering Irishman." In New Jersey, according to 
Clayton, "the earliest teachers were smart, passably educated, young 
Irishmen." James McSparran, a iiative of Derrj^, was one of the foun- 
ders of Brown University. We read in Gould's "History of Rhode 

Page Nine 



Island College" that the first funds were raised in Ireland and its earliest 
teachers were Kelly, O'Dwyer, Connor and McCormack. From a con- 
temporary record we learn that in 1718, in New Hampshire, a school- 
master was appointed as successor to "Ye late schoolmaster Humph- 
rey Sullivan." In 1734 Edward Fitzgerald was a teacher at Boscawen, 
N. H., and "Master O'Nale was appointed at Weare, N. H., in 1792." 
Ten Kelleys appear in a list of teachers in New Hampshire alone before 
the close of the eighteenth century. 

"Log College" at Neshaming was founded in 1728 by William Ten- 
nant, an Irishman. This college was the spiritual ancestor of Princeton 
University which has so many Irish traditions. The famous Bishop 
Berkely, who was a native of Kilkenny, was a teacher in the North 
American Colonies in his young days. He founded a college for the In- 
dians. When leaving America he left his magnificent collection of books 
to Yale University, thus enriching it with the finest library in the land. 
It was during his residence at Rhode Island that he wrote "Alciphron" 
or the minute philosopher. The brilliant, and somewhat eccentric states- 
man, John Randolph, was educated by a Dr. Cochrane, an Irishman. The 
colonial records of Maryland and Delaware speak of the Irishman "in 
peace, teachers j in war, soldiers," a record they seem to have lived up to 
from the time Columbus discovered America, "with a Connaughtman 
among his crew, down to the present day. 

This also explains the fact why the trail of the Irish teacher in 
American records becomes obscure after 1774. The gentle teacher be- 
came the fighting patriot. The town-clerks' records of village educators, 
which up to now bristled with Irish names, henceforth bear only the 
roll of honor of soldiers.' Another reason why it is so difficult to obtain 
a complete list of the men of Irish blood engaged in the profession of 
teaching in the Colonies, is no doubt due to the harsh laws passed against 
Irishmen by the New Englanders. One of these enacted that "Irishmen 
should dress like Englishmen and wear their beards after the English 
fashion, take English surnames such as Sutton, Brown, Green, Cook," 
etc., and it further enacted that they should use these nameg under 
pain of "forfeiting their goods." Another law enacted that a tax of 
twenty shillings should be levied on "Irish servants." Tlie New Eng- 
lander evidently had curious ideas about freedom and democracy. 

It would be interesting here to trace the influence of the Celt in the 
molding and development of American literature, but such an attempt 
would lead us beyond the scope of this paper. 

Another myth sedulously spread amongst us is that English-speaking 
people are mostly Anglo-Saxon. This is quite untrue. England herself 
is not Anglo-Saxon. When the Normans invaded England she was in- 
habited by Angles, Jutes, Saxons and Danes. Wales, Cornwall and 
Cumberland were entirely Celtic. After the Conquest the Anglo-Saxon 
tongue was proscribed. Norman French was the language of polite 
society, while Anglo-Saxon was driven into the fields, the stables and 
the kitchen. The English language as spoken in England and America 
today contains very few Anglo-Saxon words. Modern English bears 
about the same relation to Anglo-Saxon that Spanish does to Gothic of 
French to the old high German of the Franks. 

Here then is the truth about the Anglo-Saxon race and language. 

Page Ten 



Indeed, it would be safe to say that scarcely five per cent of the 
American people can lay claim to a purely Anglo-Saxon lineage. What 
good end can the preposterous claim of an Anglo-Saxon nationalism 
serve? Who were the Anglo-Saxons anyway, except the savage hordes 
of German tribesmen who drove back the Pictish and Celtic ancestors 
of our Irish-American Presidents. What interest can the countrymen 
of Lafayette and Foch have in a feud in behalf of Anglo-Saxon blood, 
or the countrymen of Pulaski and Mercier ? As one writer has well said : 

''The American who now raises the flag of Anglo-Saxon nationalism 
raises a meaningless symbol which insults the pride of millions of his 
fellow countrymen and most of the Allies and may well challenge the 
Orient to muster and drill her millions for the next war. ' ' 

No ! American civilization and ideals are not an Anglo-Saxon prod- 
uct, nor do we inherit our charter of liberties from Magna Charta, 
which, according to Lord Macaulay, was the achievement of a Catholic 
bishop whose father was an Irishman. G. K. Chesterton went so far as to 
say in Dublin last September, that our representative institutions of the 
day are not of Anglo-Saxon origin, but like all good things come from 
Greece and Rome and the Mediterranean region. It is also well for us to 
remember that Otis' pamphlets, following Locke, appeared and were 
well known here, a year before the publication of Rosseau's Contra 
Social. The political and civil ideals of the American commonwealth 
then go even further back in old Catholic days when ' ' Government of the 
people, bj' the people and for the people," was popular. American ideals 
are the ideals of just men in all ages, of Washington, Barry and the 
Fafayettes and Pulaskis of all time. They are the ideals for which the 
Irish, the Poles and the Belgians have again and again made the supreme 
sacrifice under-going even the scorn of all mankind rather than forego 
the sacred cause of liberty. 

The American commonwealth was founded at a period of great in- 
tellectual expansion by men of international outlook and sympathies. 
Hence* it is that in every great crisis of her history America has appealed 
to the tribunal of the world to pass judgement on the justice of her cause. 
Hence it is that the fathers of the American Republic regarded neither 
race nor creed when it was a question of human liberty, democracy and 
equality. For instance, it was a Catholic prelate, Bishop Carroll, a 
prelate of the world's noblest Church whom the American Congress 
thought fit to preach the panegyric of George Washington, the world's 
greatest hero. It was another great prelate. Archbishop Hughes, whom 
America sent to preach the justice of her cause in the Civil War, to the 
peoples of France and Spain and at the Vatican, and incidentally to 
establish the glorious principle of international rather than national 
allegiance. Such were the men and such the principals that made Am- 
erica the promised land of all the nations and the champion of human 
liberty and world democracy. 



Page Eleven 



Sinn Fein and Its Founders 

(Written for the "Evening American.") 

There is no question before America today upon which public opinion 
is so badly informed as the question of Ireland. I assert this, having 
in mind the great desire on the part of the people of America to be 
properly informed and with the highest admiration for the sense of 
justice and fair play which distinguishes my fellow-eountrj^men. Yet 
it is a fact that Americans have only one side of the question, and that is 
the English side. English diplomacy so far has succeeded in preventing 
Americans from getting the Irish side of the question. But a great 
American once said ''that you can fool some of the people some of the 
time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." I believe the 
time has now come when no power on earth can prevent the people of 
this country" from getting at the full truth about Ireland and at a time 
too when the American mind is fully resolved to act upon that truth. 

The story of Ireland today is the story of the Sinn Fein movement. 
To understand Sinn Fein is to understand the Irish question. The true 
history of Sinn Fein and its founders should be a matter of common in- 
formation to all liberty-loving Americans. 

When England in 1900 depleted her garrisons in Ireland during the 
Boer War, the Nationalist forces did not even make a demonstration in 
favor of National Independence. Even during the "Black AVeek, " when 
the soldiers of the Boer Republic were sweeping the British red-coats 
in a mad rush towards Cape Town, and nearly every British soldier 
in Ireland was ordered to the front, Ireland was as peaceable as an 
English Shire. The National spirit was dead or seemingly so. John 
Redmond had recently declared in a speech that Irish Independence 
was "impossible and undesirable" and the Irish people seemed to ac- 
quiesce in that statement. The turbulent Irish were quietly taking their 
place as a colony of the British Empire. It was at this time that Joseph 
Chamberlain with the usual British arrogance thought fit to taunt the 
few spirits that still clung to the hope of a free Ireland — "We hardly 
left a British soldier in Ireland," said he, "and yet we were able to 
ignore you." 

But Joseph Chamberlain liad not reckoned with the splendid tenacity 
of the Celt. Even at this time a small group of scholars and enthusiasts 
were working quietly for the regeneration of Ireland. The little band of 
Gaelic League workers, ignored and despised by the statesmen of the 
Empire, were educating the Irish people in the gospel of Nationality. 
The Resurrection of the language and native culture of Ireland was to 
make the idea of Irish nationalism richer and more militant than ever 
before. While Patrick Pearse was studying Irish in the peasant huts 
of the Arran Islanders, and Madame Markievicz was trjing to better the 
lot of the peasant farmers on her father's vast estate in Connemara 
the rising tide of Irish Nationalism was drawing these divergent spirits, 
Avith all they represented, into a common bond of sympathy in the Gaelic 
Movement. Protestant and Catholic at last had met on a common plat- 
form, and their motto was the same, ' ' Ireland for the Irish. ' ' 

Page Twelve 



About this time there appeared in Dublin a gentle, spiritual-faced 
little man, who in a few years was to revolutionize Irish politics and 
whose genius was to give a new character and impetus to the struggle 
for Irish independence. His name was Arthur Griffith, a name that will 
go down in Irish history as the father and founder of Sinn Fein, and 
which, in years to come, will be coupled with those of Washington and 
Lincoln as the father and savior of his country and the champion of true 
democracy. He had been a miner in South Africa, had read widely and 
travelled much. One would hardly have recognized in Arthur Griffith 
a distinguished personality. He was a stoutly-built, medium-sized man, 
of shy and retiring disposition. He could be seen at political gatherings 
in Dublin, usually standing by the door and taking, apparently, only a 
passive interest in the proceedings. He wore large magnifying glasses, 
which completely hid the working of his features. He was a moveless 
person — one who could take success or failure with equal equanimity. 
Yet beneath that passive exterior was a soul of adamant which burnt with 
a consuming love for Ireland. He was a brilliant raconteur and his 
knowledge of men and places was peculiarly deep and intimate — a trait 
which stood him well in after years*. Griffith's peculiar talent was his 
genius for propaganda. His wide experience of the world and intimate 
acquaintance with European politics marked him out from the first as 
peculiarly fitted to save a hopeless cause. He was given the editorship of 
a little paper called the "United Irishman," which was founded on the 
apparently forlorn hope of reviving the idea of Irish independence. 

Griffith's preaching and personality soon made itself felt among po- 
litical circles in the Capital. The separatist Journal attracted the atten- 
tion of the Gaelic League and the j^oung poets and writers which the 
Gaelic League Movement was fostering began to contribute to its pages. 

The "United Irishman" soon became one of the leading literary papers 
in the country. Yeats and A. E. lent the prestige of their names to en- 
hance its reputation. Aspiring poets and dramatists saw their first 
contributions in its pages. Griffith worked unceasingly to insure its 
success and in his paper he mooted and backed up the idea of an Irish 
theatre, which was afterwards realized in the establishment of the Abbey 
Theatre by Miss A. E. Horniman. He wrote articles appealing for the 
language, culture and industries of the country. He lashed with cutting 
sarcasm those who supported the British occupation and he directed his 
ire in particular against Redmond and his party, whom he considered 
to be the dupes of the subtle policy of English Statesmen. 

Griffith now compiled two pamphlets, one of them called "A Ballad 
History of Ireland," in which in a romantic and soul-stirring epic he told 
the story of the Celts in Europe and in Ireland. This pamphlet, written 
in language limped as morning dew, and glowing with enthusiasm, 
sent a thrill of pride through the Irish nation. He followed this up with 
a series of articles entitled "The Resurrection of Hungary — a Parallel 
for Ireland." This was published in pamphlet form and had an im- 
mense circulation. In is was contained the gospel of Sinn Fein, which 
was still to undergo many modifications before it was recognized as 
practical politics. But it heralded the first faint gleam of a glorious 
dawn. 

Page Thirteen 



Griffith's Doctrine of Sinn Fein. 

Griffith 's argument was somewhat as follows : 

The political domination of Ireland by Britain became possible only 
when her parliamentary representatives forsook the policy of Parnell. 
They asked for Home Rule, a mere system of local autonomy, which 
made the Irish question a domestic one in British politics instead of 
making it an International issue. 

What the Irish representatives should do was to revoke the Consti- 
tution of 1782 — the Constitution of Henry Grattan and have their own 
King, Lords and Commons. Hungary had accomplished this by revok- 
ing a similar constitution and thus made herself the partner and not 
the slave of Austria. While accomplishing this result she started to 
strengthen her local authority and to pursue a policy of passive resist- 
ance to Austria. This should be the parallel for Ireland. Let her rep- 
resentatives abstain from the British Parliament, for if they believed in 
the constitution of 1782, they must reject the Union of 1802, and there- 
fore, logically reject the authority of the Imperial Parliament of Great 
Britain, which recognized it. This- policy stressed the importance of 
individual initiative, of making Dublin the center of national aspirations 
and effort instead of casting longing eyes towards Westminster and the 
British Empire. At first it was called the Hungarian policy but grad- 
ually its character and motive was appropriately expressed in two Gaelic 
words ''Sinn Fein" (We Ourselves). 

This doctrine launched by Arthur Griffith ten years ago at first gained 
few adherents. The idea was too abstract and besides the majority of 
th^ Irish people had neved heard of the Constitution of 1782. The easy- 
going Dubliners looked with amused contempt upon the Sinn Fein 
policy, which they dubbed epigrammatically as "Christian Science in 
Politics." "Why should Irishmen," they asked, "acknowledge Edward 
or George as their King because the Hungarians acknowledged the 
Emperor of Austria as theirs? Why the formula of 'Kings, Lords and 
Commons ? ' Ireland wanted a policy and not a formula. ' ' 

To criticism and contempt, however, Griffith remained equally un- 
moved. He continued to draw attention to Deak of Hungary or to Liszt 
the economist of Germany. Sinn Fein contested an election and was 
beaten. It started an evening paper and failed. Redmond and the party 
were sweeping everything before them. Yet the young men of Ireland 
were sick and tired of the Party with its slavish adhesion to British 
policies and ideals, and wanted something vital and tangible in national 
politics. Griffith had accurately gauged the trend and temper of young 
Ireland and he knew he had only to abide his time to see the vindication 
of his principles. A few month ago in Dublin he witnessed that tri- 
umph when he sat in the temporary Irish Parliament in the Mansion 
House near Stephens Green. There, surrounded with the youth and 
chivalry of Ireland, pledged to defend his principles with their lives, 
surely his heart must have filled with a holy joy, when he realized the 
weary years of sorrow and disappointment through which he had passed 
still clinging like a shipwrecked mariner to the one policy that could 
make Ireland a nation in fact as well as in theory. 

The remarkable success of the Sinn Fein Policy, which has now as- 
sumed the proportions of a world movement, has brought its founders 

Page Fourteen 



into the limelight of world prominence. The original doctrine of Sinn 
Fein has been considerably modified to suit the principles of the New 
Republican Party. The only radical change, however, has been that 
Ireland no longer asks to be the partner of Britain. She demands her 
inalienable right to the status of an independent nation. In the recon- 
stituted party, Griffith is one of the three vice-preisdents. His mar- 
vellous magnanimity in asking his f ellowworkers to elect De Valera, a 
comparatively young man, to be head of the party he founded proves 
the utter sincerity and large mindedness of the man. It also proves his 
foresight and judgment, for De Valera is already recognized as one of 
the world's great leaders. His youth and fearlessness, his captivating 
personality, his hauteur and more than British sang-froid and level- 
headedness, has made him the idol of the Irish nation and one of the most 
trusted, admired, and beloved, of Ireland's many leaders. After his elec- 
tion, Griffith announced that the Irish had noAV a leader who was not only 
a soldier but also a statesman. The British press was recently obliged 
reluctantly, to verify his forecast by acknowledging the fact that De 
Valera had baffled and beaten their ablest politicians and diplomats. 

The other vice-president is Owen MacNeill. Here again Griffith dis- 
played remarkable foresight and judgment. At the reorganization of 
the party twelve months ago the re-election of Owen MacNeill as one of 
the executive heads of the reconstituted Sinn Finn was opposed owing 
to his vacillation before the Easter week rebellion. Griffith immediately 
threw in his great influence on the side of MacNeill, declaring Ireland had 
no more devoted son than he. "I believe," said GrifSth, "that Owen 
MacNeill, with the great responsibility he had on his shoulders, did his 
duty without fear — -not of death, but without fear of being misunder- 
stood." 

Nor had he ever regretted his decision. Owen MacNeill is the most 
intellectual, tactful and shrewd of the Sinn Fein leaders. His brilliant 
and scholarl}^ articles in the "London Nation," the "English Review" 
and other leading liberal papers, have won the admiration and sym- 
pathy of many fairminded Englishmen. They have to a great extent 
won over the labor democracj^ of England in favor of the Irish cause. 

Griffith with De Valera and MacNeill are now the executive heads of 
the Sinn Fein movement, and they control the destinies of the Irish na- 
tion. 

England is employing all her vast resources of propaganda to stem the 
onward march of Sinn Fein in spite of the fact that the principles of 
Sinn Fein are in perfect accord with those set forth by President Wilson. 
She has directed all her va.st and subtle power to poison the minds of 
the American people against the Sinn Fein leaders and the democracy 
they represent. Even red-blooded Americans can be won over to carry on 
this subtle propaganda. Recently an American correspondent described 
the Irish democracy as a howling vociferous mob, and, comparing it with 
the stolid, impassive British people, he exclaims, "how can these two peo- 
ples ever understand each other?" After sneering at the hysteric oratory 
of Madame Markievicz, whose guest he happened to be, he goes on to say 
that his hostess preached Bolshevism to her constituents, and that she 
seemed to be animated only by a desire for notorietj^ This is a good 
sample of the propaganda that is spread broadcast through this free land 
of America to poison the minds of its freedom-loving people against the 

Page Fifteen 



struggling young Irish nation. An American newspaper man has prosti- 
tuted the honor and chivalry of Americans, by bespattering the character 
of one of Erin's noblest daughters, who in her hospitable Irish way 
treated him as her guest of honor while she harangued her constituents on 
her policies and motives. Any American who thus acts as a spy and propa- 
gandist to a foreign cause, and tries to vilify a generous and warm- 
hearted people deserves the contempt and even the hatred of his fel- 
low-countrymen. 

Hence, I declare Americans should know something about the careers 
of the noble men and women, whom the paid agents of an alien powder thus 
revile and malign. When a renegade American accepts the gold of a 
foreign nation, and violates the sacred principles of hospitality, to act 
as spy and propagandist, it is surely time for Americans to safe-guard 
the honor and chivalry of their country. 

The marvellous re-awakening of the Celtic Matherland has sent a 
thrill of pride and pleasure thru the hearts of millions of the scattered 
Gael. The remarkable personalities that have appeared in recent times 
in Ireland and the almost lavish display of phenomenal leadership in 
letters, art and politics, has attracted the attention of a war weary 
world once again to the "Land of Saints and Scholars." The popu- 
lar war slogans ' * Rights of Small Nations, " " World Democracy, " " Gov- 
ernment by Consent of the Governed," were all enunciated in Dublin a 
dozen years ago, while the men who sponsored them were yet unknown to 
fame. A cursory survey of the leading personalities of contemporary Ire- 
land should be of paramount interest to every American, who wishes to 
understand the question of Ireland 's freedom. 

Dr. Douglas Hyde is, unquestionably, the outstanding figure of the Cel- 
tic Renaissance. He is the founder of the Gaelic League and the author 
of a history of Irish literature, and some half dozen other volumes of 
songs, dramas, and literary essays. He has revolutionized the whole sys- 
tem of National Education, and restored the language, history and liter- 
ature of Ireland to its ancient place of honor. A son of a west of Ireland 
Clergyman, he studied for orders at Trinity College, Dublin, but by a 
strange freak of fate, not uncommon in a land of paradoxes, he became 
obsessed with the idea of reviving the ancient language, literature and 
customs of Ireland. With an enthusiasm and abandon characteristic of 
the man he abandoned an assured and brilliant career, broke from the 
traditions and ties of his training and caste to become a teacher of Gaelic. 
He fought the professors of his old Alma Mater when they wanted to 
throw Gaelic out of the Curricula of the Secondary and Elementary 
schools. To prove how far behind in the world was Trinity College in 
scholarship, he invited to Ireland several famous schcolars who proved 
conclusively before the Educational Commission that Gaelic literature 
was at least equal to that of Greece or Rome. And one of the foreign 
savants declared that Irish could do for Ireland what Latin had done 
for Europe. After the testimony of the European literati had been 
published broadcast the Irish language became overnight a fashionable 
cult. Only one year later Miss Norma Borthwick, a niece of Lord 
Glenesk, received the first prize in the Oireachtas Festival in Dublin for 
an essay in Gaelic. And a few years later on Lord Ashbourne would not 
speak English on the streets of Dublin. 

Page Sixteen 



He fought the Education Board and compelled -it to make Irish a sub- 
ject of study in the elementary schools. Dr. Hyde's great work lay in 
breaking down the wall of intrenched prejudice and ascendancy that 
opposed any and every effort at national regeneration. Dr. Hyde has 
shown the present writer letters he received frofti prominent men and 
women of his own social world who roundly abused him for his work 
of De-Anglicising Ireland, and associating "with peasants, outlaws and 
Fenians." He became an outcast from his class and creed but he was 
amply repaid by the love, admiration and esteem of the down-trodden 
race whose cause he espoused with such self-sacrifice and personal loss. 
"The Creeveen Aoivin" became one of the best known and beloved names 
by the Irish "firesides. Along with Owen MacNeill his collaborator and 
co-founder of the Gaelic League, Dr. Hyde may be said to have resur- 
rected the Irish nation as it stands today. He is the father of the great 
Renaissance -which has carried Ireland by leaps and bounds into the 
fore front of modern nationalities. 

After the first Gaelic Oireachtas (the Irish National Festival) was held 
in 1901, the "Speaker" a London Liberal weekly wrote about it, with 
prophetic foresight: "The Crusade" of which the Irish literary and 
iffusical festivals (the Oireachtas and Feis Ceoil) are the outward and 
visible expression of the moment, is a new-born protest against the na- 
turalistic movement ; realism is bankrupt ; founded on the fallacy that 
man lives on bread alone, it was doomed from its inception to sterility 
and decay. The Revival of idealism today is of far deeper significance 
than it could possibly have been at any earlier stage of history and con- 
sequently the vitality of the Celtic temperament, as shown by the new 
movement in Ireland, is a phenomenon of far more than passing import. 

"More than once the Celt has purified English literature with ideals. 
The names of Thomson, of Burns, of Burke, of Scott, to mention but 
these, represent sources from which that literature drew fresh life and 
purity. Whether, as his enemies maintain, the Celt is doomd to ineffi- 
ciency and failure in practical life, he has certainly in that fascinating 
nature of his, depths of intellectual force which nurtured the strongest 
spirits the world has known, and is not likely to fail in the future. In 
a very true sense the victory is often to the weak ; and we believe that 
Ireland, hampered and stifled as has been her material life by the force 
or fraud of the stronger nation, will yet once again capture and enthral 
our best minds by the purity and the power of her spiritual and artistic 
longings. ' ' 

Such indeed has been the achievement of Dr. Hyde's work. He planted 
the seed from which Sinn Feinism has sprung. The Sinn Feiners are 
merely carrying -his doctrines to their logical conclusions. Though the 
Gaelic League was a non-political organization, and though Dr. Hyde 
resigned from the Presidency, when it became a Sinn Fein institution, 
it was the nursery in which the Sinn Fein movement was cradled and 
reared. As Parnell has well said, "You cannot set bounds to the march 
of a nation." 

Owen MacNeill. 

Owen MacNeill is now president of the Gaelic League and one of the 
three vice-presidents of the Sinn Fein party. He founded and organized 
the Irish Volunteers, of which he is still president. An Ulsterman by 
birth, he has a keen insight into the character and temperament of the 

Page Seventeen 



Orangemen. He attempted to bring the Presbyterian farmers of Ulster 
(a body of men whom he highly respects) into the national movement 
and would have succeeded but for the too exclusive national policy 
of the Irish Party. His reputation and name is almost as great among 
the Protestant element in Ireland as among the nationalists. He is per- 
haps the only one of the few Sinn Fein leaders who would receive the 
vote of all parties in Ireland as first Prime Minister in a self-governing 
Ireland. Although he tried to stop the Rebellion of Easter Week, he 
was acquitted by all Sinn Fein Commandants of any but the highest 
motives. The grandest thing that Pearse ever wrote was the following 
sentence of Owen MacNeill : "I have done my best for Ireland and 
Owen MacNeill has done his best." When Madame Markiewicz objected 
to his re-election last year Professor De Valera declared : "I know it 
was not hear-say evidence, I know what happened better than any living- 
man. There was no tribunal that understanding what took place would 
do other than acquit Owen MacNeill of anything like cowardice or dis- 
honor. " And so MacNeill was re-elected by the largest vote given to 
any one other than De Valera himself. 

MacNeill is still a Professor of Celtic History at the National Uni- 
versity, Dublin. A kindly and shrewd scholar with gray-blue eyes and 
a fair beard, just turned fifty, he receives many people in his house in 
Dublin while he smokes his pipe and talks wiselj^ about history and 
politics. Not a shadow of resemblance in this man of gentle manners 
and kindly speech to a Lenine or a Trotsky; yet this gentle professor 
is feared more by the Government of the British Empire than the two 
Ogres who control the destinies of Russia. 

It was perhaps providential that Owen MacNeill was chosen as the 
head of the Irish Republican Army. Such an organization led by a man 
of known revolutionary tendencies would have been crushed by the 
British Government at the very outset. Such is the history of the revo- 
lutions led by Smith O'Brien, Wolfe Tore and Robert Emmet. But 
Owen MacNeill was an Ulsterman, a man* of academic tastes and well 
known conservative tendencies as well as a pronounced Home Ruler. 
An organization led by this gentle professor was looked on as a harm- 
less piece of academic bluff. The present writer had the privilege of 
being a student under Professor MacNeill during the early years of the 
Volunteer movement, and at that time would have laughed to scorn the 
idea that this gentle, lovable University Professor could ever head a 
revolutionary army. So thought the British Government then, but now 
the British Government realizes that if it had hanged Owen MacNeill 
four years ago there would be no Irish Republic today. Firebrands 
may criticise Mac Neill for failing his companions at the fateful moment, 
but Owen MacNeill did not really fail them. He had accomplished the 
work which was consummated by the Martyrs of Easter Week. The 
extraordinary thing was that MacNeill could have travelled so far on 
the road to revolution and can only be explained by the fact that it is 
only in a land where misgovernment and persecution have so crushed 
mens' souls that men of saintly character like Owen MacNeill are driven 
to bloodshed and rebellion. 

President De Valera. 

Eamonn De Valera is interesting for two reasons : He is the only 
living member of the rebel commandants of the Easter Week Rebellion, 

Page Eighteen 



and he is an American by birth. De Valera was certainly born under 
a lucky star. He was the most brilliant and aggressive of the rebel 
leaders and escaped death because of his American citizenship. His 
Spanish name threw a halo of romance around him in the eyes of the 
Irish people, the majority of whom still think he is descended from a no- 
bleman left in Ireland by the Spanish Armada. As a matter of fact his 
father was a Cuban of Spanish extraction, who died shortly 
after his romance with an Irish colleen in New York. It is said his father 
was directly descended from one of the Courtiers of Queen Isabella. De 
Valera at the age of six was taken back to Ireland and reared by his 
grand-parents at Bruree, County Limerick, where he attended the old 
national school. His grandparents spoke Gaelic and at the age of. 12 
De Valera was a fluent Gaelic speaker. From an early age he also 
learned to speak French and Spanish. He worked his way thru the Uni- 
versity by meaiis of scholarships or "Exhibitions" displaying during his 
course a remarkable aptitude for mathematics. He became a tutor. He 
had no literary connections. Indeed it may be said of him, as it would 
not be safe to say of any other one man in the present day political move- 
ment that he never wrote a poem in his life. He is a-mathematician, his 
profession is the teaching of mathematics. The correspondents of the 
London Press find in him capacity for the quiet management of emotion- 
al men and women never before displayed so completely by any Irish 
leader, and a born mathematician's sense of proportion applied to poli- 
tics." These characteristics, they write, explain the career of Eamonn 
De Valera. The two leading organs of British Liberal opinion are quite 
unanimous in declaring that in any other country in the world outside of 
Ireland De Valera would now be a statesman in responsible office swaying 
the destinies of his country. "In a short time," they write, "this genius 
unfamiliar and mysterious, has converted an obscure and prescribed rev- 
olutionary society into the Dominant Irish Political party. He has 
routed the leadership of the Redmonds, the Dillons and the Devlins 
combined ; revolutionized the attitude of the hierarchy and pitted his wits 
against the whole British Ascendancy from the great Lloyd George to Sir 
Edward Carson until he has made them appear ridiculous and inefficient 
by comparison." 

De Valera 's character is made up of a curious blend of the Spanish, 
American and Irish temperaments, and he seems to combine in himself at 
once all the best and highest characteristics of these three great races. 
The English papers speak of his personal appearance as fine looking, 
though one could hardly call him handsome, very athletic, with bones 
showing he is more the type of the Scotch Highlander than the Irish- 
man. There is something American about him too, in his dash and 
vehemence and in these qualities which in America would distinguish 
him as a "Live Wire." His oratorial maner is tragic and imposing, re- 
vealing his Iberian descent. He has neither the aristocratic hauteur of 
Redmond nor the fiery hatred of England which distinguished O'Connell. 
He is moderate towards the British and goes even so far as to praise their 
many splendid qualities. And the curious thing is that no other Irish 
leader has more warm friends among the British in Ireland than De 
Valera has. They fear and respect him as no Britisher feared and 
respected another .Irish leader before. His courage is superb. When 
ordered to surrender at Bolands Mill during the Rebellion of 1916 or be 

Page Nineteen 



annihilated, he coolly walked out and approached the commanding officer 
oi the British forces, "shoot me," he calmly announced, "but spare my 
men." The Englishman was so completely overcome by his emotions at 
such a display of fearlessness and self-sacrifice, that he publicly em- 
braced him and treated him with the greatest courtesy. He received the 
death sentence calml}^ while reading his favorite author the "Confes- 
sions of Saint Augustine." Afterwards, when the sentence was re- 
versed he displayed no emotion. "Stupid" is the one word he always 
uses when speaking of the British. "The English," says De Valera, "are 
not like the Bourbons, who never learned anything and who never 
forgot anything. The English learn many things but they never know 
how to apply their knowledge. When a German learns anything he 
proceeds to apply the knowledge, but an Englishman lets his knowl- 
edge accumulate in his head until it becomes solid." 

The sensational escape of De Valera from a British -prison and his tour 
through Ireland, organizing his political forces under the eyes of two 
hundred thousand British soldiers drew the attention of the whole world 
to the extraordinary personality of Ireland's leader. His phenomenal 
appearance in America however, while the secret service agents of the 
British Empire were scouring Europe for his arrest, and the Grand Fleet 
was patroling the lanes of the Atlantic to prevent his escape, has thrown 
a halo of romance around him which has made him the most talked 
of personality in the world since the days of Napoleon Bonaparte. His 
reception by the American people is one of the most enthusiastic and ex- 
traordinary in American history. From the Atlantic to the Pacific coast 
his progress has been one great triumphal tour. Church and state alike 
have vied in giving him honors. All the great American cities have con- 
ferred on him their highest civic distinctions. Even the Indians of the 
great Northwest have made him their "White Chief tan," a distinction 
never conferred by them on a white man before. Distinguished Americans 
like Judge Goff of New York, have paid the highest compliments to his 
extraordinary grasp of political and financial problems and especially to 
his ability to win men to his point of view. The secret of his charm 
and genius may be gleaned from the following facts. At a dinner given 
in his honor at the De Paul University, Chicago, he stated that during his 
incarceration in British prisons he had riiade a long and deep study of 
political and economic science with a view to his future work as the na- 
tional and international leader of the world's most intellectual race. He 
later stated that during his next prison term, which will likelj^ be in the 
near future, he intends writing his thesis for the degree of Doctor of 
Science. Prison holds no terror for this wonderful personality. Surely 
the Irish race may be proud of such a leader. 

Countess Markievicz. 

Madame Markievicz, the Irish Joan of Arc, is undoubtedly "the enfant 
terrible" of the Irish Movement. A sprig of the old nobility and con- 
nected by blood with all the great houses of England, she has brought 
out in clear relief before the world all the fine chivalrj^ romance and 
pathos of the Irish character. The daughter of a wealthy land owner, the 
belle of Djiblin Castle society, equally at home in London, Paris or War- 
saw, became the acknowledged leader of the Dublin workingmen, and the 
heroine -of Catholic Ireland. "Conny" Markievicz, as her friends fam- 
iliarly call her, is the daughter of Sir Henry Gore Booth, one of the 

Page Twenty 



largest land owners in the West of Ireland. Her sister, Miss Eva Gore 
Booth, is a well known English writer. Madame Markievicz was brought 
up among the English garrison in Ireland, an atmosphere distinctly alien 
to everything Irish. Her young days were spent dancing at Dublin 
Castle balls, where she was the acknowledged belle, or visiting in the 
homes of the conservative governing classes of England, hunting, driving, 
shooting — a life certainlj'^ not calculated to produce a democrat and 
revolutionist. But the romatic atmosphere of the Connemara high- 
lands and the freedom and invigorating air of the Irish hillsides, where 
her riding and shooting became the marvel of a sport-loying race, were 
moulding a charcter destined for great things, and her efforts and good 
will to better the conditions of the famine stricken peasantry of Conne- 
mara had already endeared her to the hearts of the Irish long before she 
made her debut on the platform of national politics. She tried to carry 
out, according to her lights, the mission of the aristocrat but found she 
had to deal with a people whose aristocracy of mind and racial pride made 
her feel rather an inferior and plebeian by comparison. And so, like Em- 
mett, Parnell, Casement and many others of planter stock, she followed 
the call of the Dark Rosaleen — a call that meant ostracism, persecution, 
sorrow, and perhaps even death. 

When Constance Gore Booth was not working for the social uplift of 
her father's tenantry she was studying art in Paris, where she met Count 
Markievicz, a young Polish nobleman, and a fellow student, whom she 
married. She lived for a short time in Poland, but she soon grew tired of 
their antique customs and intolerant system of caste. Here again her 
democratic spirit and warm Irish nature brought her into conflict with 
the social world of her husband. It is the aristocratic custom in Poland 
to allow the servants to sleep on the stairs, the door mat, or around the 
kitchen stove. After a prolonged and heated controversy she compelled 
her husband to build sleeping quarters for the servants. Polish society, 
however, was entirely alien to her refined, impulsive, and generous Irish 
ways. After a short stay she induced her husband to come with her to live 
in Ireland and so she settled in Dublin. Here her salon soon outrivalled 
that of the famous Madame Roland. Both she and her husband wrote 
plays and acted them. She became a suffrage leader, a Gaelic Leaguer, 
a social reformer. She went round asking her freinds, ''What can I do 
for Ireland." And then her chance came. The Boy-Scout movement 
in England under General Baden Powell, had become a great national 
movement. Baden Powell wrote to Patrick Pearse, whose love for boys 
was widely known, asking him to form branches of the Boy-Scout move- 
ment in Ireland. Pearse refused, but did not propose any alternative 
plan. Madame Markievicz asked, "Why not form a Boy-Scout Brigade 
of our own. Why not teach Irish boys to fight for their own country." 
With characteristic energy she went to work and started an Irish Boy- 
Scout Brigade in opposition to those of Baden Powell, which would 
merely teach Irish boys to be loyal to the Empire. She bought a house 
outside of Dublin and lived there with her boys as a military Amazon. 
The affair became a national movement over night and Countess Mark- 
ievicz and her boy scouts became one of the institutions of the Capital. 
From this started the idea of volunteering and arming the young men of 
Ireland as a counter-stroke to Edward Carson and his Ulster Volunteers. 
Madame Markievicz became one of the most uncompromising leaders of 

Page Twenty-One 



the Sinn Fein Volunteers. She was one of the strike leaders in 1912, and 
fed thousands of working people in Liberty Hall during the terrible 
strike of that unhappj'- period out of her own funds. Her part in the 
Rebellion is well known. At the elections last November she was unan- 
imously elected by the working-men's division in Dublin to be their 
parliamentary representative. At the time of her election she was still 
an inmate of a convict prison in England. In order to rid herself of 
her last tie with the world of her caste, she became a convert to Cath- 
olicism in order she declared, to be one in heart and mind with the brave 
boys who fearlessly faced death under her command at Stephen's Green. 
A fcAv months ago she sat in the Republican Parliament in Dublin — the 
first woman in the history of the British Isles elected to such a posi- 
tion of honor. 

Countess Markiewicz is a woman of medium build and of frail looking 
constitution. But she has received an iron nerve and a well of abundant 
energy from her early training in the out-door life of Connemara. In 
manner she is exceedingly gentle and refined, but on the public platform 
she becomes transformed into .a fire-brand, as she denounces with su- 
perior contempt, inherited from her Saxon forebears, the men and women 
of the world, of which she was once the ornament and the idol. She is 
loved by the poor of Dublin with a love shown by the Irish heart for those 
only who have won them body and soul. 

Such is the lady whom an American correspondent described as a frail, 
hysteric sentimentalist, preaching Bolshevist doctrines in the streets of 
Dublin. ! tempora ! ! mores ! 

The Objects of Sinn Fein. 

The average American citizen who gets his information from a certain 
section of the daily press is taught to look upon Sinn Fein as a"" society of 
irresponsible enthusiasts who have neither property nor standing in the 
civil or social life of Ireland. To him the Sinn Feiners are represented 
as a lot of political adventurers who live, move, and have their being, in 
treason and sedition. He is taught to look upon the British constitution 
as the counterpart and parent of our own Charter of Liberties, and all 
who oppose the application of its principles to the government of the un- 
ruly Irish are compared to the Blackhanders, Bolshevists and socialists 
who are trying to overthrow the American commonwealth. The more 
loyal and staunch is his Americanism the greater will be his sj^mpathy 
for the harassed British and the greater will be his aversion to the Irish 
agitators. He is never taught that the justice dealt out to the Irish people 
is that defined by Cromwell, "Being when applied to Ireland, and well 
being Avhere England is concerned." He is taught to look upon men like 
Sir Horace Plunkett as representative of the Irish democracy and is 
told that what the Irish people want is to live peaceably with England 
vinder a system of Colonial Home Rule. Finally he is told that the whole 
Irish question is a domestic one for Britain in which no outsider has a 
right to interfere. 

In direct opposition to this propaganda is the Sinn Fein policy which 
is now supported by five-sixths of the Irish people. They propose to make 
Ireland a self-governing Republic. Mac Neill has shown in a brilliant 
article in the English Review that an Irish Republic would not endanger 
the national life of England. His argument has convinced many notable 
public men in England, and the Manchester Guardian has endorsed it. 

Page Twenty-Two 



Sir Horace Plmikett, however, speaking recently here in America for 
the Pro-British Party in Ireland, cynically remarked that for every ar- 
gument Ireland can put forth for her independence England can put 
forth five million, each one supported by a bayonet. To this Sinn Fein 
replies that it hopes to attain its object not by force of arms but by an 
appeal to the forces that are re-making Europe. It claims that under the 
doctrine of "Suppressed Sovereignty" Ireland has the right to be re- 
presented at the Peace Conference. The Irish Constituent Assembly, 
representing a decisinve majoritj^ of the Irish people, has made that claim 
good. The fact that the Irish Parliament has already convened in Dub- 
lin, without interference from the British authorities, proves that the 
English Government at last recognizes the sovereignty of the Irish people. 
Even Ulster is silent and sympathetic. The Irish have already drawn 
up a constitution and proclaimed to the world their Declaration of In- 
dependence. The case for Ireland is in fact completed. It now remains 
for the Peace Conference to put into force the principles for which the 
war was fought and for which our country has given the wealth and blood 
of her best citizens. The European Conference is now face to face with 
the great test of the sincerity of its principles and on this question hangs 
the fate of the World's Peace. An overwhelming majority of the Ameri- 
can people have declared in favor of Ireland's independence. President 
Wilson declares himself in complete sympathy with Irish as- 
pirations. It now remains to be seen whether the American President 
will rise to the full height of his great mission by freeing the shackles 
from the la^t victim of monarchy and imperial ascendancy in Europe. 
The Sinn Fein Policy is, therefore, practical and realistic, and it has given 
the Irish people a sense of solidarity and purpose that they never will 
lose again. This policy is now supported by the whole of nationalist 
Ireland; peasants, working people, both men and women, merchants, 
business men, priests, intellectuals, both men and women, a very alert, 
a very well educated and as I believe, an exceptionally well led de- 
mo c^-ac v. 




Page Twenty-Three 



The Irish Dramatic Moa ement 

(Lecture given at South Bend. Ind., June 9, 1919.) 

The Irish dramatic movement represents what may be called the 
intellectual side of Sinn Fein, for the men who have created Irish drama 
and made Dublin one of the world's greatest schools of the Dramatic 
Art are the men who are today leading the Sinn Fein movement in its on- 
ward sweep to victorj\ Hence in the following paper I want to show 3''ou 
that Sinn Fein has done other things for Ireland and for the world be- 
sides arranging revolutions and breaking the skulls of the British paid 
Irish police. I shall confine myself to what Sinn Fein has done for the 
drama, and to what its influence has been in purifying the stage and 
elevating its ideals in this our own fair land of America. I want to 
show you that the movement is more interesting, the men more remark- 
able, the intention more distinctive and original than any similar move- 
ment in Europe since the Renaissance. 

Higher criticism in America today is no longer interested in the home 
product. Not even our own George Cohan can draw the critics into a 
discussion of his work. But they never cease in their philosophic twaddle 
and aesthetic valuations about Ibsen and Maeterlinck and Strindberg. 
while in the next breath they rush into ecstasies over William Butler 
Yeats, A. E. Russel, Lord Dunsanny and John Milton Synge, whom the 
high-brows now describe as the Irish Shakespeare. Bernard Shaw, 
of course has been identified with the Irish Dramatic Movement but 
like Halley's comet, he is unique and neither his philosophy nor Sha- 
vianism can be said to be in any way typical of the modern Irish drama. 
The world wide fame attained by the Irish Dramatic movement, and its 
influence on the American and Continental stage, is one of the most 
remarkable literary phenomena of recent times. Hence its rise and 
development should be of paramount interest to ever}" cultured American. 

I say that the Irish Dramatic movement has purified the life and 
elevated the ideals of the American stage. It would be truer for me to 
say that American drama was practically non-existant until the arrival 
of Abbey players from Dublin. Before their arrival the plays presented 
in America were written by Englishmen, by American hacks or by 
tramps. The drama of Augustus Pitou, drawn from the material of the 
Boucicault plays which was the vogue in America before the coming 
of the Irish players, blighted all efforts of the American Irish to elevate 
or purify the stage. The work and influence of George Cohan in present- 
ing America with genuine drama would never materialize were it not 
for the inspiration of the 'Abbey players with their fresh and original 
plays. -i 

Away back in the eighties the American pla}' was proscribed by many 
Christian Churches, particularly by the Catholic Church, and severe 
penances were given for attending plays. A girl who took up the stage 
as a career in those days became a social outcast. Today nearly half 
the stage of the English speaking world is said to be Catholic, and this 
is entirely due to the purifying and elevating influence of genuine Irish 

Page Twenty-Four 



drama. It has uplifted a profession which the blight of Anglicisation 
had rendered immoral and degraded, and it has brought before the 
world a true picture of the splendid qualities, the high ideals and the 
intellectual hegemony of the Irish race. 

This brings us to the history of the Irish dramatic movement. This 
movement concurrently with the Gaelic League was the first manifesta- 
tion of that spirit known to the world today as the Spirit of Sinn Fein. 
Politically it is the Irish counterpart to the American challenge "My 
country right or wrong, but still my country." Intellectually it was a 
rebellion of the Irish intellectuals against the stage Irishman, and also 
against the horrors of the low music-hall, and the debauch of musical 
comedy. Dublin never possessed a creative theatre except for a short time 
during the G rattan Parliament. Yet Dublin had been always a great 
school of acting and supplied the English stage with players like Quin, 
Ma(;klin, Woffinghon and Miss O'Neill and the playwrights like Sheridan, 
Kowles, 'Keef e, Farquahar and Oscar Wilde. Until Dion Boucicailt 
took to Avriting plays, the Irish were known to the theatre going world 
thru the medium of the stage Irishman. 

The stage Irishman is familiar to everybody, but he exists onlj' in 
the rather stolid imagination of the well-fed Britisher. He was repre- 
sented in tall hat, green pantaloons, cut away coat, out at the elbows. 
His pipe appeared sticking out of his hat, his nose was turned up at an 
angle of 45 degrees. When he spoke, he always made a vulgar joke and his 
speech was an illiterate brogue never spoken by humans before. He had 
hardly any sense of right or wrong, but he was endoAved with a very 
keen sense of the vulgar and grotesque. When not driving a jaunting 
car and fleecing good natured American tourists, he was frequently rep- 
resented as driving a rather attenuated pig to the fair, with a rope tied 
to its hijid leg, its tail tapering jauntily in the air, rushing between the 
feet of unsuspecting pedestrians, and laying them gently on the mud with 
that supreme indifference that pigs show to the dignity of mera mortals. 
Then again he was represented as a vulgar tavern brawler '•drunk and 
disorderly ' ' flourishing a quart bottle of whiskey in one hand, a shellelagh 
in the other, and inviting all and sundry to a fight. 

The Irish were represented as a race of ignorant peasants, lazy and 
thriftless in their habits, dirty in person, vulgar in speech and super- 
stitious and incapable of either understanding or appreciating the higher 
and nobler things of life. To caricature the Irish was a high pastime of 
the English and American stage of less than twenty years ago. 

The Irish Dramatic Movement has killed and buried the stage Irish- 
man and even the high-brows of London and New York were glad to 
have the privilege of assisting at the funeral. They reluctantly bowed 
to the dramatic genius of the Irish. 

But tho the stage Irishman is dead, the English tradition of the 
Irish still prevails under the stage management of the British propagan- 
dist. The English tradition of the Irish has so permeated the life and 
literature of this country that it is extremely difficult to eradicate it. 
We find this tradition in everj' play, in every book and in every article 
written by an Englishman about Ireland and by many Americans too, 
for that matter. The tradition is this ; ' ' The Irishman is warm-hearted, 
hospitable and witty; slothfully indolent; thriftless, a lover of inebriety 
and quarrels; impatient and unhappy under restraint of law and order; 

r 

Page Twenty-Five 



temperamentally and religiously unfitted for self-government; mentally 
superficial; intellectually brilliant but unstable and an impracticable 
visionary," Such is the picture drawn of the present generation of 
Universitj^-bred men and women who are today up in arms for the 
freedom of their country. And unfortunately there are thousands of 
Irishmen and hundreds of thousands of American who believe it. 

You will find this tradition in Bernard Shaw and George Birmingham; 
you have heard it suavely stated by T. P. 'Connor and Horace Plunkett 
when speaking of the young enthusiasts of Dublin. You will see it repre- 
sented in every theatre and picture house you enter, but, thank Heaven, 
you will no4onger see it or hear it in the Capital of the Irish Republic. 

The Drama of Sinn Fein is today fighting to kill this tradition by 
giving true pictures of Irish life, ideals and thought to the theatre going 
public. It is the duty of the Irish in America to help the movement by 
recreating genuine Irish drama in our midst. 

But to continue the history of the Movement — The Irish dramatic 
movement commenced in May 1899 when' W. B. Yeats ' play the ' ' Count- 
ess Kathleen" was presented in the Ancient Concert Rooms, Dublin. Five 
years previously, Yeats' one act play, "The Land of Hearts Desire" 
had been produced at the Avenue Theatre, London and this gave Yeats 
the idea of starting a genuine native theatre. 

It was not until three years later, however, that the dramatic move- 
ment took definite shape when the Fay Brothers established the Irish 
National Dramatic Company with W. B. Yeats as director. Their won- 
derful skill in teaching, producing, and acting, soon envolved a distinct 
and really fine school of Irish acting. Yeats became from the outset, 
as it were by Divine right, the leader of the Dramatic movement — his 
genius, his high idealism and unswerving purposefulness made the 
success of the movement -assured from the outset. 

In 1903 the name of the society was changed into the Irish National 
Theatre Society with W. B. Yeats, A. E. Russel, Edward Martyn, George 
Moore and Lady Gregory, as the guiding spirits — a brilliant galaxy of 
genius indeed. 

Up to this time the movement had been hampered by lack of funds 
and most of the plays had to be rehearsed and acted in musty old halls 
and at irregular intervals. However, several plays such as Synges', 
''In the Shadow of the Glen," "Riders to the Sea" and "The Hour 
Glass" by Yeats were successfully produced in the Molesworth Hall. 
Plays by George Moore, Edward Martin, Alice Mulligan and Douglas 
Hyde were also presented. The Fay Brothers, while rehearsing Dr. 
Hyde's Gaelic Play, the "Twisting of the Rope" conceived the idea of 
forming a Company of Irish-born actors to act plays written by Irish 
writers. Shortly afterwards they presented two plays, "Deirdre" by 
A. E. Russel and "Kathleen Houlihan" at St. Teresa's Hall, Clarendon 
St., Dublin, on April 2nd, 1902. Thus came into existence this company 
of amateur poets and dramatists known as the Abbey players. 

In 1904 the Company paid a flying visit to the Royalty Theatre, 
London, where their performance was seen by Miss A. E. V. Horniman, 
an English lady of means and with a passion for the drama. This lady 
had already given Bernard Shaw (whose first play "Widowers' Houses" 
was presented at the Independence Theatre in 1892) Yeats, and Dr. 
John Todhunter their first start as playwrights. Deeply impressed by 

Page Twenty- Six 



the talent displayed by the amateur band of Irish actors she resolved to 
find a place for such talent in Dublin. So, securing the services of a 
famous architect, she built the Abbey Theatre, which was constructed 
with classic severity and capable of seating 600 people. 

She presented the theatre free to the Irish National Theatre Society 
and endowed it for six years. Here then was the cradle of the Irish 
Dramatic Revirval. It was opened in December, 1904. Two new plays 
were immediately presented. Yeats' play, "In Baile's Strand," dealing 
with the Irish hero Cuchlainn and also Lad}' Gregory's amusing farce 
"Spreading the News. " It was in Yeats' play that the well known Abbey 
comedian, Mr. Arthur Sinclair, made his first appearance. Miss Horni- 
man subsequently granted a subsidy, so that the players could devote all 
their time to their profession. The movement now progressed rapidly. In 
1906 four new plays were produced. Mr. William Bojde, a dramatist 
of prime distinction, appeared on the scene. "The Well of the Saints," 
by John Milton Synge, was produced this year but did not make any 
great impression. The high-brows of today, who now compare Synge 
to Shakespeare, had no word of praise for his first public appearnce, 
but only strong abuse. Ladj^ Gregory's play "Kincora" dealing with 
the Court of Brian Boru was well received. Play followed play in quick 
succession, all dealing with some phase of Irish life or history. At this 
time a host of young playwrights had arisen in Dublin, and the Abbey 
school of players had become a National institution. The Irish National 
Theatre Society next paid two visits to London but failed at first to win 
the approval of the British critics. Their plays were criticised as being 
too short and devoid of that intellectual staying power necessary for 
involved construction and the carrying through of great drama. 

Their three act plays were described as one act plays in three scenes. 
From this reproach the movement was redeemed by a distinguished 
dramatist, Mr. William Boyne, whose play, "The Building Fund, " raised 
him at once to fame and he still remains the most popular of Abbey 
playwrights. His two plays, "The Eloquent Dempsey" and the "Mineral 
Workers," gave the movement a new impetus on the road to fame. As 
a social satirist Boyle stands unrivalled and presents a wholesome con- 
trast to the "saeva indignatio" of the Irish Shakespeare, John Milling- 
ton Synge. 

In 1907 "The Play Boy of the Western World," by John Millington 
Synge, was presented at the Abbey Theatre. On this occasion a large 
and distinguished audience, representative of the intelligence of Dublin, 
had assembled at the Abbey to criticise the new play of the dramatic 
star. As the appalling story unfolded itself the audience looked at 
each other with mild amaze. Was it possible there existed anywhere in 
the world a community as vile as this — lost to all sense of moral decency 
where all sense of right and wrong seemed to be in abeyance. The play 
was acted seriously and soberly as if it Avere a transcript from actuality. 
As the third act drew to a close, and the awful outpouring of Billingsgate 
blasphemy and ribald invective, or what the English high-brows call 
the "frankness of Elizabethian speech" drenched the audience with the 
stench of its foulness, a number of ladies and gentlemen in the front 
seats left the hall, and the play ended with a wild protest of hissing and 
uproar. Mr. Yeats, with his habitual wrong-headedness, tried to revive 
the play in America, but it was hissed from the platform and has since 

Page Twenty-Seven 



been consigned to the dust-heap. The fact that throughout the play 
are scattered passages of intense poetic beauty and luscious poetic 
images, only made it all the more objectionable — the high verbal beauty 
being thrown like pearls on a dung-hill. 

In 1907 seven new plays were produced — among them were "The 
Workhouse Ward," by Dr. Hyde, and the "Rising of the Moon," by 
Lady Gregory. 

After the failure of the "Play-boy" Yeats and his co-directors raised 
the parrot cry that the play was mere extravaganza, and in all its revivals 
at home and abroad it has been played in a highly farcial, wholly dis- 
cordant spirit, which has rendered the original implication of the author 
entirely nugatory. 

Altho the Fay Brothers resigned from the Abbey, and several of the 
more notable playwrights withdrew their productions from the Abbey's 
repertory, owing to the scandal-mongering of Yeats and his players in 
America, the Abbey continued to flourish, so exhaustless were the re- 
sources of dramatic genius in Ireland. 

In 1908 the British Association visited the Theatre and were enter- 
tained by the directors. John Millington Synge died this year to the keen 
regret of all who knew him. The man was greater than his work, but 
he was cursed with all the folly of genius. 

Unfortunately the continental leprosj^ spread itself in the Abbey 
School of Dramaturg3^ Mr. Yeats informs us that he told the inner school 
of Abbey playwrights to avoid the love interest, because entanglements of 
that kind lead to the writing of conventional drama. It is characteristic 
of Yeats' inconsistency to deny the thorough independence claimed by 
him for the genus artist, to the school he was proceeding to tutor. The 
result is that until the rise of the tidal wave of Sinn Fein the Dublin 
playwright, instead of giving free play to his own individuality and going 
to nature for his material, has copied the approved model and given us 
faint reflexes of the brooding, filthy-tongued peasant of Synge. 

There could be no outpouring of healthy national drama under such 
conditions. But Patrick Pearse and his associates have purged the Irish 
Dramatic Movement of this unhealthy lepros3^ 

In 1909, nine new plays were given to the public of which the most 
remarkable was the "Cross Roads," a fatalistic peasant drama by Mr. 
Robinson. 

Ireland has no dramatic censor. Now Bernard Shaw's new play, 
"The Showing Up of Blanco Porsnet, " was prohibited bj^ the Lord 
Chamberlain in England. Yeats, who with sublime inconsistency had 
already refused to produce Shaw's play, "John Bull's Other Island," 
now took up the cause of Shaw's new play with sublime heedlessness of 
consequences. In vain the Castle authorities protested against this 
interference Avith the Lord Chamberlain's prerogative. Yeats and Lady 
Gregory issued a joint proclamation challenging the principle of dra- 
matic censorship generally. Dublin was bubbling with excitement at 
the prospect of a fight and tumbled over each other in their rush for 
seats at the Abbey. The Sinn Feiners remained passive, not wishing to 
injure the dramatic movement by starting a row and causing the Abbey 
patent to be cancelled. It passed off, however, without incident. 

Mr. William Boyle and the other playwrights who had deserted on 
account of the "Playboy" now returned to the field and the Dramatic 

Page Twenty-Eight 



Movement received a new impetus by the revival of Boyle's play, "The 
Building Fund." 

The year 1910 saw the production of eight new plays, among them 
"Deirdre of the Sorrows," by J. M. Synge, and "Thomas Muskerry, " 
a perfect picture of Irish rural life by Padraic Colum. "The Birthright," 
by T. C. Murray, was also produced this year and heralded the event 
of a new star. Mr. Murray has since come to the forefront of the dra- 
matic profession since the production of his play "Maurice Hart" in 
London. His dramaturgy is remarkable for its clean-minded realism. 

In 1911 Dr. Hydes nativity play was produced. It was notable for 
its reverent acting and harmonious staging. This year also Lord Duns- 
anny's play, "King Albigenses and the Unknown Warrior," was pro- 
duced, as well as "A Land of Heart's Desire," by W. B. Yeats, and 
"Mixed Marriage," by John G. Irvine, a play .of Belfast working life. 
Some time previous to this Miss Horniman had withdrawn her subsidy 
from the theatre and retired from the Movement. W. B. Yeats made 
an attempt to enlist West British s.ympathy in the movement by handing 
round the hat for $5,000.00, but his appeal was treated with cool con- 
tempt by the garrison. He then conceived the idea of taking the Abbey 
Players to America. Before leaving for America he instituted a school 
of Acting under the direction of Mr. Nugent Monk. This second com- 
pany rapidly materialized and produced some excellent plays, but for- 
tunately the sympathy of the Irish public was alienated by the notoriety- 
mongering of Yeats in America with the "Playboy of the Western 
World." It was the only way the Dublin public could signify its dis- 
approval of the scandalous campaign. During Yeats' absence. Dr. 
Hyde's play, "The Tinker and the Fairy," was produced and also a re- 
vised version of the "Countess Kathleen," .with great artistic success. 
"Red Turf," by Rutherford Mayne, was also produced. No sooner had 
the Abbey Company returned from their success de scandale in America 
than they were off again to London, where they produced Mr. Boyle's 
new comedy, "Family Failing." 

When the Abbey Players returned to Dublin all Ireland was play- 
writing and play-acting. Dramatic societies had sprung up all over 
the country. The Ulster Literary Theatre at Belfast, the Cork Dra- 
matic Society, the Theatre of Ireland, Dublin, founded by Padraic 
Colum and A. E. Russel, and others in Galway and Waterford followed. 
Every town had its own dramatic society and its own dramatists. 

Besdes these there were two Gaelic Dramatic Societies which produced 
plays by Douglas Hyde, Pierce Beasley and Cannon O'Leary. So great 
was the passion for the dramatic art displayed by the re-awakened in- 
tellect of Ireland that Frank Fay declared that "he thought everyone 
had a play in his pocket" and that any one in the street could be picked 
up and shaped into an actor or actress with a little training, Ireland 
was so teeming with talent. 

Meanwhile at St. Enda's College, Patrick Pearse, with his staff, were 
writing pageant plays and having them acted by his boys. They went 
back to the ancient life of Ireland — to the days of Cuchlainn and Brian 
and Malachy for the material of their plays, forsaking the Pagan phil- 
osophy and Freudean Spiritism of Yeats and George Moore and the 
filthy-tongued peasants of Synge. They went into the Gaeltacht and 
drew therefrom that inspiration which has since made the drama truly 

Page Twenty-Nine. 



representative of Irish life and character, and redeemed it from that 
continental leprosy with which Yeats and Moore and their followers 
had infected it. Among the most remarkable of their plays was a 
Passion play written by Pearse himself and acted at the Abbey Theatre 
by the students and staff of St. Enda's. It was based on Irish folk tra- 
ditions concerning the Passion of Christ and was so remarkable that it 
drew iistinted praise from English and Continental papers. Bernard 
Shaw's taunt that the Irish are not a distinct nation, because they lost 
their language has been amply disproved by Pearse and the school of 
Gaelic playwrights of which he was the head. Many of Pearse 's plays 
were written in Irish and acted by Irish boys trained by Pearse himself. 
The Irish capital can boast today of a school of Gaelic drama as fresh 
and full of life as any similar school in the world. 

It was from such beginnings that the Norwegian Theatre grew until 
it became truly representative of the national life and customs. Indeed, 
anyone who has lived in Edinburgh, for example, and in Dublin, can 
see the absurdity of Bernard Shaw's contention. The Scotch have sur- 
rendered their individuality ; the Irish have preserved theirs. The names 
of Yeats, "A. E." James Joyce, T. C. Murraj^ Tom Kelly, Pearse and Pa- 
draic Colum have made Dublin more finely critical of art and literature 
than London itself. It is in fact another intellectual centre. 

The distinguishing note of the Abbey school of drama has been the 
high, almost uniqvie, quality of its acting. The principles inculcated by 
the Fay Brothers made for the avoidance of all conventional and dis- 
tracting stage tricks. There was to be no playing for one's hand, no 
stepping out of the picture, no posing in the centre of the stage, amid 
an aura of limelight, no senseless by-plays and no pointmaking. The 
gallant little band of amateurs approached the work of acting as some- 
thing sacred — a sort of ritual to be sloAvly and rythmically performed. 
It is the actors who have made the Abbey Theatre famous and not the 
plays. They have cast a spell over all who have seen them. Many of 
us have pleasing memories of William and Frank Fay, Dudley Diggs, 
Sara Allgood, Arthur Sinclair, Marie O'Neill, J. M. Kerrigan, Fred 
Donovan and Nora Desmond. Even if we are not always delighted 
with what our playwrights give us, the way in which the plays are served 
us invariably wholly satisfies. 

Our modern playwrights are still far from the ideal of a pure national 
drama, though the Sinn Fein spirit is quickly redeeming their defects. 
The revolt against the Pitou drama, and the Boucicault plays, whose 
rollicking boys, full of fun and frolic, and colleens that could do no 
wrong, have driven many of our playwrights to the other extreme. 
They have peopled our stage Avith peasants, cruel, hard and forbidding, 
and colleens the reverse of lovable in thought and act. What we want 
is the happy medium which few of our playwrights have given us as yet. 

Writing on" this subject a half dozen years ago A. E. Russel, the Irish 
Dante, severely criticised the Irish poets and dramatists. He Avrote : 
"Ireland is a horribly melancholy and c.ynical country. Our literary 
men and poets who ought to give us courage, have taken to writing about 
the Irish people who 'went forth to battle, but always fell,' sentimentaliz- 
ing over incompetence instead of invigorating us and liberating us, and 
directing our energies. We have developed a new and clean school of 
Irish dramatists who say they are holding up the mirror to Irish peas- 
Page Thirty 



ant nature, but they reflect nothing but decadence. They delight in the 
broken lights of insanity, the ruffian who beats his wife, the weakling who 
is unfortunate in love and who goes and drinks himself to death, while 
the little decaying country towns are seized on with avidity and exhibited 
on the stage in every kind of decay and human futility and meanness. 
Well, it is good to be chastened in spirit, but it is a thousand times 
better to be invigorated in spirit. To be positive is always better than 
to be negative. These writers understand and sympathise with Ireland 
more through their lower nature than their higher nature. Judging 
by the things people write in Ireland, and by what they go to see per- 
formed on the stage, it is more pleasing to them to see enacted char- 
acters they know are meaner than themselves than to see characters 
which they know are nobler than themselves. ' ' 

He writes further on: ''If the Irish people do not believe they can 
equal or surpass the stature of any humanity Avhieh has been upon the 
Globe, then they had better all emigrate and become servants to some 
superior race, and leave Ireland to new settlers who may come here 
with the same high hopes as the Pilgrim Fathers had when they went 
to America." 

This vigorous condemnation was penned at the dawn of the Sinn Fein 
Renaissance. A few years later "A. E." beheld the realization of his 
dreams in the bloody drama of Easter Week, and the glorious uprising 
of the Celtic race in every land. 

Of recent plays presented in America the most successful, perhaps, 
was Canon Hannay's "General John Regan," which gave great offence 
to the people of the West. James Stephens and Jane Barlow have 
contribiited to the Dramatic Movement but have not achieved any re- 
markable success. The re-enacting of Irish drama in America has met 
with great success in the hands of playwrights like George Cohan and 
Padraic Colum, interpreted by such geniuses as Nellie Huban and 
Chauncey Olcott. David Belasco, the greafest of American producers, 
has founded a new school of Irish drama by the presentation of his 
great play, "The Dark Rosaleen, " which has been the talk of all New 
York. On the operatic stage, too, such artistic geniuses as Denis 'Sulli- 
van, Joseph O'Mara, Nellie Meagher and the McCormack's, have 
brought Irish dramatic genius to the very highest achievements. 




Page Thirty-One 



The Celt in America 

(From "America.") 

In an article on ' ' The Mission of the Celt in America, ' ' Dr. Ryan makes 
some statements with which many of his first cousins will not agree. He 
is mistaken in thinking that wealth and high station are detrimental 
to the idealism and spiritual mission of the Celt in America or in his home- 
land. On the contrary during the days of her greatest prosperity, from 
the sixth to the ninth century, Ireland became one universal monastery 
and some of her greatest saints and idealists — Brigit, Columbkille, King 
Cormac, Celestinus, Angus the Culdee, and others, were princes brought 
up in luxury and acquainted with the highest thought and culture of 
contemporary Europe. It is a colossal mistake to think, as many Irish- 
Americans are inclined to think, that the lowly status of the Irish in 
America as "hewers of wood and drawers of water" has been a help 
rather than a hindrance to the spread of Catholicism in America. The 
contrary is true. Were the Irish a self-governing people, speaking their 
native language, with their ambassadors at all the world's capitals, 
America would long since have been converted to the Catholic Faith. 
The curse of the Irish immigrant was that he spoke English and was half- 
Anglicized before he came to America. He was taught to look upon his 
people as an inferior race, a conviction which the Gaelic and Sinn Fein 
movements have eradicated from Irish life today, but which is still 
noticeable in the mental make-up of the average Anglo-American. 

The fault of the Irish in America has been that their leaders have not 
appealed more to the so-called "pagan society," gone into it and leavened 
it by their idealism and spirituality. When the Jesuits sent missionaries 
to China they sent their ablest mathematicians and astronomers, and it 
was not until they were raised to the rank of mandarins that they hoped 
to make converts in the Celestial Empire. What were Columbanus, Cole- 
man and Don Scotus but native Irish princes, the elite of the elite, and yet 
they converted the greater part of Romanized Europe and superimposed 
the culture of Christian Ireland on that of Imperial Rome. They made 
their appeal not to the ignorant masses but to the kings, emperors and 
intellectual leaders, and the masses soon followed the lead of their mas- 
ters. St. Patrick adopted the same policy towards the native aristocracy 
of the pagan Irish, and Columbekille in Scotland followed his master's 
example. 

An Austrian nobleman is insulted if you ask him whether he is a Pro- 
testant. To be anything else but Catholic is unthinkable in the society 
in which he moves. An Irish- American millionaire who occupies a prom- 
inent place in the social register cards and writes a belated account of 
his social activities in the American "Who's Who," is sometimes ashamed 
to admit that he is a member of the Catholic persuasion. Why? Because 
he is an upstart; he is ignorant of the genius and material and moral 
greatness of his Celtic forefathers. The Irish princess, Grainne Uaile, 
standing proudly before Queen Elizabeth and spurning her paltry titles 
because she was a princess among her own people, should be typical of 

Page Thirty-Two 



the attitude of the Celtic race towards American society. The Irish have 
always occupied in Europe, and occupy in the world today, a place similar 
to that occupied by the Greeks among the ancient nations — the repository 
of art, idealism and culture. Those who crawl on all fours to gain an 
entree into "society" are not Irish, and their influence can never interfere 
with the spread of Catholic ideals, one way or the other. The more Irish- 
men acquire wealth, influence and social station in America the better, pro- 
vided they retain their distinctive individualitj^ and Irishism, and, thanks 
be to God, the best of our race in America have done that. Morever I 
contend there is more idealism in American life today than there is in any 
other country in the world. A people who have willingly sacrificed their 
sons on the battle-fields of France for abstract principles must indeed 
have ideals of a very high order. The attitude of the American "pagan" 
highbrow towards the Catholic Church proves that no other people are 
more openminded, liberal and impartial than the native American "aris- 
tocracy" to the idealism and culture of the Catholic Church. If we look 
at the lists of converts to Catholicism in America, we find the best and 
most influential of them come from the so-called "first families," the 
elite of the land, mentally and socially. 

' Besides no one is treated with higher respect or gets a warmer place 
-in the hearts of the American people than the Irishman of good family, 
Mdidse culture and mentalit.y are distinctively and purely Irish. The 
reception given to Padriac Pearse, Mrs. Sheehy-Skeffington, and Dr. Hyde 
is surely sufficient proof of that. The small number of upstarts who try 
to identify themselves with high "Society" in America, and in doing so 
lose their faith and national characteristics, are treated by the better-in- 
formed and higher class of the American people as "upstarts" and 
"bounders." They are looked on with contempt. It is not, then a ques- 
tion of wealth and social station ; it is a question of blood and culture. 
Where these are lacking, nothing can be expected. The Irish Celt need 
never fear contact with true American life and culture. Let him enter 
it and get to the top, and American life will be all the better for him. 
Only a few years ago the savants of Europe such as Meyer, Thurneyson, 
De Jubainville and Loth were frequent guests in the homes of the Irish 
people. Why? Because Irish life had once again found its way into 
the main current of European thought. 'Donovan and Hyde and Yeats 
and MacDonough and Pearse had awakened the Celt from the nightmare 
of Anglicization, and shown Irishmen their place in the social register 
of intellectual world-aristocracy. And so it is in American social life 
today. It is not the social world of the upstart "four-hundred" money- 
lenders and bankers and hangers-on of the British garrison in America 
that the intellectual leaders of the Irish race should aim at conquering ; 
rather they must gain the hearts and the ears of those Americans whose 
forefathers wrote the American Constitution, and followed Washington 
into Valley Forge, and who today represent the true soul and spirit of 
modern America. The Celts are a race of gentlemen and need never fear 
to place themselves on absolute equality with the best products that 
American life can show. The combination of modern Americanism with 
the grace, charm and innate culture of the Irish Celt is the finest product 
of American life today and to get that you must go among the real 
aristocracy of America. 

Page Thirty-Three 



The Celt in America 

Mr. M. J. 'Donohue, M. A.. 

April 20, 1918. 
Dear Sir: — 

What will be written the writer hopes to serve as an introduction. 
For from your article to the "America" we are long since kinsfolk in 
sentiment. 

That article lias just been read with heartiest satisfaction. In which 
you have shown a joyful knowledge of our race-in its make-up, its pre- 
dominant force, its lodestone qualities of culture, and grace. You are 
the only writer to "America" who has a thorough-going grasp of the 
"God of_ things as they are," and of the "God of things as they ought 
to be." That very string of racial inferiority amongst so many of the 
Irish here, you played it with correctness and sweetness. 

Usually in dealing with this particular question, friend or apologist 
alike scrape the strihg with the shrill rasping of sarcasm or satire. 
Whereas your defense is mellow, your explanation is true. 

Thanking you with great pleasure, 

I am, Your's sincerely in Christ, 

Rev. James J. O'Riordan. 

All Soul's Church, Sanford, Fla. 



Page Thirty-Four 



The Irish Fairy Land 

(From the Denver Catholic Register.) 

The American tourist who pays a flying visit to Ireland is apt to be 
bewildered and oftentimes disgusted by what appears to him as the gross 
superstition of the people and particularly their fear and reverence for 
the fairies. Very often this is because he comes from a land where the al- 
mighty dollar reigns supreme and where naturalistic ethics and material- 
istic tendencies prevail. But if he studies the psychology of the Irish 
temperament (and nobody is more sympathetic with Irish thought and 
customs than the cultured American), with its glowing idealism and love 
of the supernatural, he will gain some understanding of that wonderful 
palace of delight — the Irish Fairyland. 

The tendency to lying sometimes observable among the Irish is really 
only the traditional instinct of imaginative variation in which the old 
Romancers delighted. The Celtic mind hates cold fact; it loves fact 
adorned with fancy. Similarly the cult of Fairyland is but a kind of na- 
tional telepathy — a thought m/ovement of the race towards the superna- 
tural. It displays the wonderful power of the human mind when freed 
from its materialistic environment. It is this tendency of the English 
mind which seeks for explanations of the supernatural in life, thought, and 
nature, in telepathy, spiritism and thought-reading, etc., and which is 
sought for by the Celt in the spirit creation of Fairyland. 

Fairyland is then one of the institutions of Celtic civilization. It is a 
world of ideal perfection and loveliness evolved out of the Celtic con- 
sciousness in its innate strivings for the atttainment of the supernatural. 
It is the El Dorado of the Celtic mind — the Utopia of the world's great- 
est dreamers. Those who attribute the Irish belief in fairies to ignor- 
ance and superstition, altogether ignore the transcendent genius and 
philosophy of the Celt, who has evolved this beautiful spirit-world of his 
own, and made it the richest medium of myth and romance that ever 
existed among any race. 

The cult of the ' ' other world ' ' has existed in Ireland among all classes 
from the earliest pagan times. When Patrick and his companions ap- 
peared before the daughters of King Laeghaire, they were astonished 
'at them, thinking they were "Daoine Sighe," or gods of the earth, or 
"Phantasies." The ancient Irish possessed a variety of gods, such as 
Deal Dagda, Manan MacLir or the Irish Neptune. The "Daoine Sighe," 
or fairy phantoms were supposed to be the spirits of a previous race 
whom the Milesians conquered and who held their abodes under ground, 
from which they issued forth from time to time to wreak vengeance on 
the conquerors. Hence many of the great battles of the old Celtic ro- 
mances were purely mythical. 

In the spirit world of the Christian Irish there are two distinct classes 
of fairy beings: First, the "Daoine Maihe" or "good people," who 
are supposed to be their friends and render them services of various 
kinds, of whom anon, and, secondly, the "Deamain Aeir" or "evil 
spirits," who are inimical to all mankind. Among the early Christian 

Page Thirty-Five 



Irish there was a third liierarchy called the "Tuaha de Danan," who 
were conquered by the early Milesians, and dwelled in forts and under 
the hills, from which they frequently issued forth to aid Irish heroes, or 
combat other evil spirits. 

Many theories are advanced to account for the Celtic belief in Fairy- 
land, but none of them seems satisfactory. There is the common the- 
ory of the Irish themselves that the fairies are those fallen angels who 
did not deserve the eternal punishment of hell, and who are left to roam 
thru space in expiation till the judgment. The fairies themselves seem 
to have a certain hope of future happiness, and hence the belief that they 
must roam the realms of space until the day of judgment, when they will 
be re-instated in the heavenly kingdom. These "Daoine Maihe" or good 
fairies are kindly disposed towards man and protect him against the 
"Deamain Aeir" or evil spirits. TJie latter hierarchy of spirits have no 
hops of future bliss, and are the unrelentuig enemies of mankind. Again 
many ingenious writers have tried to prove that the origin of the fairy 
cult is purely psychical, and that fairyland is thought to exist on the bor- 
derland of time and eternity as a kind of ethereal world that permeates 
all space, and is filled with countless hierarchies of airy creatures, some 
friendly and some inimical to mankind. In this land dwell the ghosts 
of Irish legend and story, who always manifest the good or evil charac- 
teristics which they bore in this world. • 

The doctrine of immortality, however, plays a strong part in the 
origin of the belief in Fairyland. The early pagan Irish believed in the 
immortality of their departed heroes. The land of perpetual youth was 
situated away west underneath the Atlantic ocean. One of the most 
beautiful of the Fenian tales describes how Ossian. was taken away 
by Niav of the Golden Hair, the Queen of Fairyland, and kept there 
until the time of St. Patrick, when he returned to earth and held the 
famous discussions with St. Patrick on the Christian Faith and beliefs. 
Another abode of the departed heroes was O'Breasail, of the Elysian 
Fields away in the western Atlantic, and celebrated by Tom Moore in one 
of his soughs. O'Breasail can be seen, with its golden towers and shining 
palaces, on a fine summer evening, from the Kerry headlands. Some of 
the most beautiful tales in the romance literature of Ireland center around 
these abodes of the departed heroes, and the descriptions of the joys and 
delights of the Fairylands in imagination and rich poetic beauty excel 
anything in literature, ancient or modern. 

Such were the lands of myth and romance, of endless beauty and var- 
iety, wherein the Celtic fancy loved to dwell ; where it basked in the sun- 
shine of infinite space, away from the sordid cares and troubles of this 
prosaic everyday world. Here the Irish peasant loves to roam free from 
the sordidness of daily toil to associate in tender comradeship with the 
herues and great men and women of old ; where his exuberant fancy is 
thrilled and delighted with all that is lovely in life and nature ; where his 
soul is refreshed and soothed by the strains of heavenly music ; and 
where everything is refined and elevated and ideal.. They are lands 
flowing with milk and honey, where jvistice reigns supreme, where youth 
never fades and beauty never decays, where virtue is rewarded and 
vice unknown; where women reign as queens and men's highest am- 
bition is to do them honor and their only reward a grateful smile. They 
are the lands of chivalry, of weird fancies, and never-ending change. 

Page Thirty-Six 



This belief in the fairy world enters largely into the life of the Irish and 
forms a most interesting study in the national psychology of the race. 
The Irish are extremely careful to propitiate and give pleasure to their 
fairy friends, not from a sense of fear, for that is characteristic only of 
savage, and uncivilized peoples ; but rather from charity and innate kind- 
ness of heart. Every household keeps clean drinking water in a vessel 
in the kitchen every night so that the fairies in their nightly revels will 
have sufficient to drink. The fairy hosts wander around from house to 
house during the cold nights of winter, alwaj^s entering and leaving 
thru the key-hole. Spilt milk is alwys left to the fairies, and is never 
cleaned up or interfered with. Cattle are frequently bled in forts or 
raths and the blood offered up in sacrifice. The first milk of a cow is 
always thrown out for the fairy hosts. If a cow gets sick, it is sup- 
posed to be due to fairy malice. To effect a cure she must be bled, and 
then devoted to St. Martin. If she recovers she is never sold nor killed.. 
The fairy chiefs, too, are fond of stealing babies and beautiful young 
maidens, especially during time of sickness, and leave changelings in 
their places. Many and various are the devices by which the imposters 
are driven off, and the lost ones returned to their friends. If the ab- 
ducted maiden refuses all meat and drink from her fairy captors, she 
safe in their hands, and can never be given in marriage, until rescued 
by a lover. 

The Changelings are easily known by their conduct and appearance. 
They have very old faces which they contort with fearful grimaces. 
They can play the ceol sighe (fairy music) which j)uts all the tables 
and chairs in the household dancing ; and then they have enormous appe- 
tites. One of the usual ways for expelling them is by putting them on a 
large shovel and heating them over the fire ; after which they fly out the 
chimnej^ and the true child comes back to his old place. Brides too, are 
frequently abducted on their marriage daj', and handsome youths are 
taken off to be fairy bridgegrooms. 

Whirlwinds are always called the "sighe gaoihe" or fairy wind, and 
those who are caught in them always suffer some evil from fairy malice. 
To combat this evil influence one should always bless himself and throw 
grass or bits of sticks or ferns with the wind so as to propitiate the fairy 
deities. To carry cinders in one's pocket, especially at night, is a good 
protection against fairy malice. The crowing of the cock is also sup- 
posed to protect the members of the household against the evil agen- 
cies of the fairy world and hence the people always attribute a sacred 
character to the cock and put him to roost in the kitchen at night. 

Many of the old pipers were supposed to freq^uent the company of the 
fairies in their nightly rides thru space and to play for them in their 
revels. No piper was considered a finished musician who could not play 
the ceol sighe (fairy music). Such was the magical influence of this won- 
derful music that all the chairs, tables and utensils in the household 
danced to it, and those who listened were compelled to dance until they 
fell down exhausted. 

Many people too were endowed with the "evil eye," so that whenever 
they felt inclined to do evil they cast the "evil eye" on some animal or 
on a child and soon after it sickened and died. If a neighbor entered an- 
other neighbor's house while they were making the l3utter, he should 
always catch hold of the dasher and churn a few strokes lest the fairies 

Page Thirty-Seven 



steal the butter. A horse's shoe was frequently nailed to the churn to 
prevent the thieving sprites from, getting away with the butter. The 
fairies were once conquered by a race who used iron weapons and hence 
their fear of iron. 

One should always share what one is eating with a child lest he suffer 
from the "evil eye." One should never refuse salt to a neighbor, nor 
cross a neighbor's door Avithout entering. One should never go to see a 
neighbor's cattle or pigs without blessing thenj so as to protect them 
from fairy malice. Old clothes, and the garments of dead people, should 
be alwaj's given away in charity. It is always unlucky to travel or to cut 
one's hair on a Monday, and cut hair should be ahvays stuffed in a hole in 
the wall. 

On All Hallow's Eve people make little cakes and plaster them against 
the back door of the kitchen for the fairies' midnight meal. All the fairy 
hosts are supposed to issue forth on this night and every household leaves 
food and fresh water in the kitchen for their midnight revels. 

Besides the great hosts of life-size fairies there are other diminutive 
spirits much beloved by the Irish people. The most lovable and best 
known of these is the "Leprechaun," with his little red cap and cobbler's 
last. He has two purses on his little person — a purse of gold and a 
purse of silver. Whoever is lucky enough to get hold of him and keep 
him sufficiently long in terror, will obtain one of the purses. He is 
however, a sly imp, and once his captor's eyes are off him he disappears 
into thin mist. The Leprechaun personifies industry, which if steadily 
persevered in leads to wealth and happiness. 

The "Leanan Sighe," or fairy attendant, is the inspirer of the local 
bard and. the giver of the gifts of poetry. The "Banshee" is one of 
the most famous of the fairy sprites. Nearly all the old native families 
have an attendant spirit, who hovers round the family mansion and 
fortells the death of some member by a loud, wierd and piercing wail. 
The lonely wail of the Banshee always prognosticates some overshadow- 
ing calamity or dire disaster for the family. Nothing fills the Irish peas- 
ant with so much terror as the wail of the Banshee. 

"Siuvan diiv na Boinne" is the fairy spirit of the Boyne, much re- 
nowned in story. The "Pooka" (Spooks) is the fairy genius of the 
ravines and gorges. He issues forth at night in the shape of a horse or 
an ass, and whoever molests him, he hoists hirn on his back and keeps 
him there all night while he rushes thru the brambles and bushes of the 
gorges and ravines, until his poor victim is nearly torn limb from limb. 

The "Piast Mor, " or great serpent, demands a sacrifice of a beauti- 
ful maiden every seven -years. Famed are the heroes who have con- 
qiTcred the serpent and rescued the maidens. The "Dullaghan" and 
"Geanncanach, " or graveyard urchins, play foot-ball with the skulls of 
the dead, or play leap frog with each other while they hold their heads 
under their arms. The "Hag" is endowed with supernatural powers 
of strength and malice and the "Gruagach" or sprite of the wells pro- 
tects holy wells from pollution. 

The "Mermaid," who is half fish, half Avoman, may be seen on fine 
summer evenings combing her golden hair on the rocks near the sea- 
shore. The mermaids inhabit the most beautiful palaces beneath the 
waves. Moore makes reference to this in one of his poems ; 

Page Thirty-Eight 



"He sees the round towers of other days 

in the waves 
Beneath him shining." 

Then there are the black cats, which keep ward over hidden treas- 
ure. Bardic incantations drove away these cats. Weasels and cats are 
revered because to touch them would bring bad luck. 

Now one may naturally ask, What is the value of this endless variety 
of fairy beliefs and practices? And the answer is clear and simple. It 
is the root and the explanation of the difference between Celtic Christian- 
ity and the Christianity of Britain and the Continent. Christianity in 
Ireland was fused with the native civilization and culture. In Britain and 
the Continent Christianity was superimposed on the intermediate layer 
of Roman culture and organization. Hence, Irish Catholicism is from the 
Eternal City, but Irish culture is from Ireland herself. iVnd the first and 
most striking characteristic of this culture is what might almost be 
termed an uncanny faculty for realizing the unseen. Tho other lands 
can lay claim to their share of legend, myth and fairy lore, no other peo- 
ple have become so thoroughly imbued with the element of the mystic 
and supernatural as the Celts. Their attitude to the invisible world is 
almost startling in its matter of fact realism. Christianity has only 
changed the objective. In place of the Banshee and the good people the 
Irish Catholic has put Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. How- 
ever pagan they may seem to the enlightened modern, they are a silent 
testimony to the tenacity with which the Celtic mind, having once seized 
the supernatural, will never let go. And this tenacity, aided by Divine 
Grace, has given to Ireland the transcendant honor of being the only na- 
tion in northern Europe to hold out at the Reformation and which has 
made her today, even by the testimony of her enemies, the most Christian 
nation in the world. When the Irish were denied the Mass and the Sac- 
raments during the Penal Daj^s, they fell back on their Holy Wells and 
incantatiojas, and every rath and mound became a holy sanctum where 
the Mass was offered in secret and superstition was lost in Faith. 
■ One of the great assets of the fairy cult is the fact that it proves a 
sedative to the strongly emotional element in the Celtic nature. Where 
other peoples drown this God given element in lust, the Celt lets it ex- 
pand itself harmlessly in the dreamy realms of religious ecstasy, or in 
the fairy regions of his romantic imagination. When the Celt becomes 
degenerate he takes to drink or emigratiou. His women have charm 
and beauty, but the Ave Maria has frozen their lips and the prestige of 
centuries of high moral culture keeps them on the path of rectitude. 

In Gaeldom superstition is lost in imagination, and charm and prayer 
intermingle, except that charms are always for temporal needs. The 
Irish pray when they milk the kine, or rake the ashes, at bed-making and 
waking, when they take snuff", or pick herbs. Almost every dogma of 
Christian belief is expressed in their manifold prayers and salutations, 
so much so that a famous writer once declared that if the whole code of 
Christian law were destroyed it could be reconstructed again from th 
language and literature of the Irish. 

All the beliefs which surround the wake the Banshee and the "keen" 
sprang from the Celtic belief that the dead do not die. Hence the cus- 
tom of leaving pipes on the grave instead of wreaths and of leaving snuff 

Page Thirty-Nine 



offerings around the body of the deceased, from which each person takes 
a pmch. This has given rise to the custom of saying the prayer before 
takmg snuff or tobacco in a friend's house: "May the souls of your 
dead rest in peace." To the Celt life and death are one. Hence the 
hilarious spirit so often observable at Irish wakes. A native peer, who 
made a bid for popularity by imitating native customs, which were* all 
an enigma to him, on a famous occasion celebrated the opening of a family 
vault by a county ball ! A priest once forbade the ' ' keening. ' ' Then his 
brother was killed and he "let the pitifulest, beautifulest keen ever heard 
in the parish." 

So deeply has the invisible permeated the life of the Celt that to him the 
invisible is the more likely, the temporal only doubtful and not to be de- 
pended upon. All current Irish philosophy hinges on this fact How 
often do we hear the Irish expression, "It will be all the same in a hun- 
dred years," or the cheery answer ti) the query "What is the time?": 
"Time enough." It is only a people who have made eternity a reality 
and invested m it, who can afford to waste the precious gifts of time 




Page Forty 



The Shuiler 

"(From the Irish Press.) 

In the general breakup of the old Celtic institutions and their usurpa- 
tion by those of the Anglo-Saxon, nothing is sadder to the Irish heart than 
the destruction of the Biadhtach, or Irish public hostel. No poor law or 
"poore houses" existed in Celtic Ireland. The functions of these rather 
miserable innovations of Anglo-Saxon civilization were performed by 
the old Irish Biadhtach, where rich and poor alike were equally welcome, 
and where all were treated with equal hospitality. Even the Saxon 
Bede, who possessed no great love for the Irish, confessed in his ecclesi- 
astical history that the Northumbrian Thanes, who visited Ireland for the 
study of the Scriptures, were generously provided for by the natives, 
and that they received their daily food free of cost, books also to read, 
and gratuitous teaching. Such were the functions of the Biadhtach. 
But We have one remnant left to us — one reminder of that golden past 
in the fear shuil, or traveling man. The Irish poor have never taken 
kindly to that truly Saxon institution, the "poor house," and the shuiler 
ever gives it a wide birth. It carries with it a stigma of ignominy and 
degradation altogether revolting to the sensitive Celtic mind ; for it is 
the emblem of his country's degradation and slavery. 

The good old virtue of charity, however, still finds a warm place in 
the hearts of. the Irish people. As long as the poor traveler can use 
his feet he need never enter the dark and gloomy poj^tals of the work- 
house. He will always find a warm corner and a bit to eat by the hos- 
pitable Irish fireside. It is always considered an honor to entertain the 
shuiler, and every good old family has its retinue of travelers who pay 
the family periodical visits and are always treated with the greatest 
respect, and the shuiler pays his kind hearted patron by his wit, learning 
and piety. For the shuiler is a man of wide experience, well ac- 
quainted with history, and the current topics of the hour. His advice 
is always welcome and generally followed. Oh I if the Irish people had 
nothing else to recommend them to the respect and admiration of man- 
kind except their never failing kindness and charity to the poor outcast 
wanderers — '.'the brethren fallen by the wayside" — of this world, they 
would indeed be deserving of all love and respect. 

I recall with lively interest my last experience with two representative 
types of the traveling fraternity. The first was the bowed figure of an 
old man carrying a bag, a pilgrim of charity on the road, who had no 
hope of a weekly dole, or old age pension. With bent head, eyes on the 
ground, his shuffling feet appeared each moment about to refuse the 
task of the slight ascent. He went by without looking up, a color- 
less figure, bag and torn clothes, and face, and old muddy boots blended 
into one dirty drab. As I looked after him in the ijiisty light of the 
afternoon, he seemed some inhuman mass moving by instinct to seek 
some hole. And then — was it the dignity of the soul made me claim 
him from the beast — I thought I saw his angel behind him and all the 
tortoise shape vanished. The bag must have pressed heavily, for he 

Page Forty One 



stopped, crawled over to the wall and rested the bag upon it. He looked 
with cold, blank eyes absolutely indifeerent to life and me. That was 
for a moment or Uyo ; then one of the corded hands went slowly up to 
his cap. But he did not begin to beg. He said in a clear even voice as 
of one about to enter into conversation with a neighbor, that the eve- 
ning was fine. He was a shuiler and I did not ask him his history 
There were no potatoes to be got, he said in the same apart way, or what 
a man traveling the road got was taken from the pig's pot. He had 
a few now in his bag. 

There Avere some who would buy them in the town ; but the times were 
bad, the worst he remembered, and the people were not what they used 
to be, not so ready to give those who had no roof for themselves. The 
price of everything made it hard for one like him to get enough food for 
his mouth. Then he hitched his bag slowly on his shoulders and hoping 
(rod would make the road wide before me, and that the souls of my dead 
might be m heaven that day, he went on his journey, friendless alone 
except for the Figure behind him. 

I met another shuiler who happened to be a particular friend of my own 
family of several years' standing and an aristocrat of the profession I 
received him m state, as became our friendship, in my sitting room at 
the hotel. He came in thumping his stick on the floor, for his sight is 
weak— a tall, broad, big man over 60. He is a County Galway man 
and has a wide business connection with the old families He reels off 
their names, speaks proudly of their wealth or former wealth and sor- 
rows, as at a personal loss, over their misfortunes. The war had hit 
him, killing many of his friends and patrons. He sadly repeated the 
words of the sorrowing poet : 

Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? 

Where is our Irish chivalry? 
Wild grasses are their burial sheet 

And sorroAving waves their threnody. 

In vain the laughing girl will learn 

To greet her love w'ith love-lit eyes! 
Down in some treacherous black ravine 

Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. 

And many a moon and sun will see 

The lingering, trustful children wait 
To climb upon their father's knee. 

And in each house made desolate, 

Pale women who have lost their lord 

Will kiss the relics of the slain — 
Some tarnished epaulette — some sword — 

Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. ^ 

His old friends. seemed to have clothed him. "This is Mr O'Rourke's 
coat; he had it ten years," he said. "The grandest cloth." And I see 
he would like me to feel it. He speaks of his friends titled and untitled 
m any easy, familiar, yet respectful tone, as if the reflection of their 
splendor rested upon him. Welcomed so long as the doors of the "big 

Page Forty-Two 



houses" he feels in some subconscious way linked' with their owners, and 
he lingers on his travels at an avenue gate where the Congested Districts 
Board reigns, and prays for his departed friends. But though long inti- 
macy with the old magnates of the county makes him speak with affec- 
tion of Mr. Nick, or Mr. Pierce, Sir Walter or Sir Valentine, he has warm 
feelings for the people. But like the other shuiler, he complains of 
a change in the cottages, and of the airs and anglicization, though he 
does not use the words of the boys and girls. I consulted him about po- 
tatoes. It was not a question that affected him directly ; he carried no 
bag. He had a little money put by for the time that old age took away 
the strength of his feet, and there was a sister's roof to shelter him in 
mid-Galway. But he gave it his attention, though he held no bag before 
the cottage door, yet the price of everything threatened him with want, 
unless he drew upon the little store, or burdened his sister with his keep. 
The potatoes were short, there was no doubt about it, and the women, 
the creatures, were right to drive the big buyers away. He had seen the 
rotten potatoes turned up in the fields that pigs wouldn't take. There 
were people so wicked and greedy that they would sell the food out of 
the mouths of their children. The times have changed — the people did 
not pray as they did long ago. 

A few days later I met another shuiler, crooked with rheumatism, 
tramping along the muddy road. I stayed to chat with him for some 
time. "I was a boy in the great famine," he said. "I am over 80, and 
I remember Maire-na-Teampul (Mary of the Church) living down there 
in the church yard. She had gone mad up in County Galway and had 
strayed away on her people. She lived in the old cell in the church 
yard and took the turf, and boiled nettles and what she could get. And 
I saw a woman dead back in the boheen. There was nothing to eat." I 
answered, laughing, "There's plenty now," I said, "even if the potatoes 
themselves be bad." The old man nodded absently, his horny eyes 
fixed down the road, his mind clearly -on the scene of hunger and death. 
Then he hobbled across the fence, paused for a minute, and raising his 
stick towards the trees of the old church yard: "I saw her buried 
there, and three of the children dead with the hunger and the fever. I 
was small myself, but I remember that the potatoes were all rotten." 
Then the rumble of wheels and a neighbor in an ass cart passing with 
a bag of flour shook the memory from him and jerked him back into the 
present. 

What sorrow and tragedy, the modern humanitarian will exclaim. 
Cui bono? queries the Socialist in tones of contempt. But up through 
the vistas of the centuries, through the murk of selfishness and ma- 
terialism, comes the answer of the gentle Saviour: "Blessed are the 
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." Surely to no land 
on earth do these solemn words apply more aptly than to the much 
maligned little nationality of the West. 



Page Forty-Three 



The Poor Old Man 

I see him passing on his way, bent, weary, ragged, poor, 

A-down the long and dusty, road that winds across the moor. 

With patches on his cotamor,* now changed t^ many a hue. 

For sun and rain alike have been his staunchest friends and true. 

Hark to his feeble, faltering breath; Ah; now he's falling; no, 

'Tis but the sudden gust of wind his form is bending so ; 

And onward still and onward just each stranger's face to scan, 

Tho 'tis snail-like is his pacing, comes the poor old man. 

Ah ! whither is he going ? And why must he be about 
In the dreary winter weather or the tempest 's angry shout ? 
Has he not a home of comfort and a fire to keep him warm? 
Or does no one bid him enter in to bide the passing storm? 
Ah no, for he's a beggar and his class is under ban. 
And Society is lacking many a good Samaritan. 
Who should give ear to sympathy ere charity began, 
And so he's turned from their doors, the poor old man. 

But once he had a happy home and children on his knee, 

And listened to the crooning songs of gentle Yanithee.* 

Too soon the hand of famine came and took them from his side. 

And a broken man to wonder o 'er the boglands wide. 

He was left to bear his burden and his grief alone. 

And he couldn't rest contented within sight of home. 

So remember this, patricians ! And pity when you can. 

As you meet him by the wayside, every poor old man. 

*Cotamor — overcoat. *Vanithee — a housewife. 




Page Forty-Four 



The Co-Operative Movement 

The Co-operative Movement begins with Horace Plunkett. The idea 
however goes back to the days of the first Napoleon whose transcendent 
genius was the first to grasp the idea of the Co-operative Commonwealth. 
The Code Napoleon, which prevails in most European countries, was 
based on this system. Modern France owes all its wealth and power to 
the "syndicats agricoles" or co-operative farming system. Horace 
Plunkett and his associates were the first however to bring the idea of 
rural co-operation prominently before the English-speaking world. 

The history of the Co-operative Movement is a story of the triumph 
of failure, like many other progressive movements. When Horace Plun- 
kett returned to Ireland in 1889 he found, as 4^. E. Russel relates "rural 
Ireland completely disorganized, the population melting away, Irish 
produce badly marketed, prices falling every year, and science unknown 
on the farm." With energy characteristic of his American training he 
set himself to the work of building up a new social order in Ireland, 
based on agricultural organization. The system then existing in Ire- 
land as well as in England was the feudal system, in which the landlord 
practically speaking owned his tenants body and soul. The Irish how- 
ever shot their landlords and gradually wiped out the system of feudal 
aristocracy. It is still the system in England where the co-operative 
movement has always been a failure. The Servile State of Hilaire Belloc 
is an excellent outline of the governmental system prevailing among 
the British. 

The true significance of Plunkett 's movement, then, was the setting up 
of a new social order, and the development of a rural civilization and 
culture on purely Irish lines. After many disappointments and weary 
labors, Plunkett and his associates, Lord Monteagie and Fr. Tom Finlay, 
formed the Irish Agricultural Organization Society in 1894 with Horace 
Plunkett as President and Fr. Tom Finlay as vice-President. Seeing 
the enormous advantage that the Continental farmers had over the Irish 
farmers was due to superior organization, combined with better education 
the promoters of the new society determined that Irish agricultural in- 
dustries must be organized on a co-operative basis after the systems 
prevalent in France and Germany. So Horace Plunkett decided to com- 
mence a campaign of education among the farmers. With the instinct 
of a true American he enlisted in his favor the support of all classes and 
particularly of the professional, literary and scientific men of the country. 
A. E. Russel thus describes the founder of Co-operative organization : — • 
"Nature had prepared him for the work he had to undertake by gifting 
him with every kind of insidious power to drag people out of their own 
private and proper work and make them do his work instead. The 
Apostles did not seem by their previous professions more unsuitable to 
turn into divines than the people Horace Plunkett collected and filled with 
his own spirit and sent out to organize the farmers. Artists, poets, 
literary men and clergymen fell victims to him equally with those who 
were personally interested in farming. Every extreme of political belief 

Page Forty-Five 



was represented in his circle. Orangeman met Fenian, the Church of 
Ireland clergyman met the Catholic priest. The Ulster Unionist found 
himself to his astonishment discussing Irish economics with Munster 
Nationalists. Plunkett wanted to keep his work non-polkical. He had 
not at that time realized that to the political powers in Ireland the most 
poisonous character enmity to them could assume was to be non-political. 
He was the spirit of Sinn Fein casting' a rather misleading shadow before 
it, because such politics as he professed were vaguely Unionist." So 
succesful was the work of the new society that in 1904, the organization 
numbered 800 agricultural societies, two hundred agricultural banks, 
with a membership of 400,000 and a combined trade turnover of approx- 
imately $2,000,000. All these societies consisted of groups of farmers 
who had been taught by organizers that certain branches of their business 
could be more successfully conducted by associations than by individuals 
acting separately. 

A little perodical called the ''Homestead" was established which gave 
up-to-date information on all phases of agricultural work. This paper was 
edited with rare ability by A. E. Russel and became the organ of the new 
movement. It is today the most up-to-date and advanced publication 
on economic and agricultural organization. To thoroughly understand 
the ideals that animated the leaders of the co-operative movement one 
must read that fascinating little classic of A. E. Russel — ^" Co-operation 
and Nationality." 

In 1900 after much Parliamentary agitation the government established 
a Department of Agriculture in Dublin with an endowment of $830,000 
a year. The object of the Department was to give technical information 
to farmers, and to give instruction on agricultural subjects. The follow- 
ing year the Royal College of Science was re-organized and endowed 
with a view to training teachers and scientists for agricultural pursuits. 
Continental tours were also arranged by a scholarship system so that the 
experts and students of the Department could study the systems of 
Continental countries, and thus improve the home industries, with a 
view to capturing the foreign markets. The movement had now attracted 
world-wide attention and visitors from France, Canada, the United States, 
Australia, South Africa and the West Indies came to . Ireland to study 
the new system of co-operation and human reform. 

Following the Danish method of distribution the Irish co-operative 
societies quickly controlled the sale of butter, eggs and poultry in British 
markets to the intense chagrin of the British themselves. They intro- 
duced the Raffeisen system of banking by which the savings of the com- 
munity are loaned to the members of the society for an approved pur- 
pose, and at low rates of interest. Thus it is the interest of each member 
of the community to become interested in the success of his neighbors 
business. The secret of co-operation in fact is self-help by mutual help. 

In connection with the agricultural bank was the co-operative store. 
These stores were established after the following plan. When the pro- 
moters had secured a minimum of 200 stockholders the store was estab- 
lished. Each stockholder promised to buy his goods exclusively at 
that store. The goods sold at the store were bought direct from the 
producer, or manufacturer, and sold to the stockholders at cost price plus 
the cost of operating expenses. This method eliminated the excessive 
profits of the middleman as the storekeeper was only an agent of the 

Page Forty-Six 



stockholders. By this means also the stockholders and customers were 
able to procure the best and cheapest goods at cost price since they were 
at liberty to buy from any manufacturer or producer they pleased. The 
farmers were thus able to buy costly machinery, which they held in 
common and which individually they could not afford to buy. The pro- 
fits accruing to the store were returned to the stockholders by way of 
dividends. In 1911 there were 1,000 farmers' organizations in existence, 
with a membership of 100,000 farmers, mostly heads of families and an 
anual trade turnover of $15,000,000, a splendid record of achievement 
indeed. 

Ireland had now for several years been leading the United Kingdom in 
agricultural organization. An English Agricultural organization society 
had been formed after the Irish model, with an Irishman who had studied 
co-operation at home, as its chief executive officer. A Scotch Agricultural 
Society was also formed but neither of them proved successful owing to 
the intense individualism and perhaps selfishness of the English and 
Scotch farmers. 

In 1910, Horace Plunkett published^ his book "The Rural life problem 
in the United States." In this interesting study of the rural life of the 
American people he pointed out to the American farmer the lessons of 
the Irish Co-operative Movement. The Farmers League of the Middle 
West has taken his lessons to heart and they already exercise a mighty 
influence on the public life of the country. Since 1910 great agricultural 
and industrial associations have sprung up all over Ireland of which the 
largest and most influential is the Cork industrial Development Associa- 
tion. Recently it was instrumental in inducing Henry Ford to establish a 
giant motor factory in Cork City, and which has now become the distrib- 
uting centre for the Ford plants in Europe. This great commercial un- 
dertaking was carried thru in the face of the strongest opposition from 
the British government at Westminster. 

The Co-operative Movement has solidified the Irish people into" one 
great Co-operative Commonwealth, so that when they proclaimed their 
independence last year, it was a comparatively easy matter for them to 
take over the government of the country into their own hands and keep 
it there, in spite of the presence of a huge alien army armed with all the 
machinery and panoply of war. 

Co-operation is entirely in harmony with the inherited instincts of the 
Irish whose associative qualities have made them successful in every land 
on the globe to which they have emigrated. It has aroused them to the 
fact that it was only thru self-help they could obtain deliverance from the 
grasp of an alien power. A striking illustration of this was given in the 
defeat of Conscription when the whole food-producing element of the 
country, laborer, farmer, and factory hand, laid down his tools until 
the mailed hand of militarism was lowered in dismay. Recently also 
when the city of Limerick was proclaimed a military area, and the rights 
of its citizens were curtailed at the point of the bayonet, the people of the 
historic city set up a miniature republic of its own, issued its own credit 
system, with the result that the military withdrew in disgrace for lack 
of supplies. • 

But the great achievement of the Co-operative system is the elimination 
of the middle man, or ''gombeen man" as he is called in Ireland. This 
is the great contribution which the militant democracy of Ireland offers 

Page Forty-Seven 



to the world today. A brief survey of world conditions today will show 
how the Celt once again has come to the rescue of modern civilization. 
Statesmen everj-where agree that the greatest crisis in history now con- 
fronts the world. A tide of industrial unrest and anarchy is rising rapid- 
ly and thru evil guidance threatens to engulf civilization. This tide is 
only the yearning of the common people for justice and freedom coming 
down thru all the ages and like a pent-up torrent is about to break all 
barriers and deluge the world. President Wilson has accurately gauged 
the trend of the times in solemn and prophetic words: "And I want to 
utter this solemn warning not in the way of a threat — the forces of the 
world do not threaten, they operate. The great tides of the world do not 
give notice that they are going to rise and run; they rise in their majesty 
and overwhelming might and those who stand in the way are over- 
whelmed. Now the heart" of the Avorld is awake and the heart of the 
world must be satisfied." 

Statesmen of the old school, — the greybeards of the Paris Peace Con- 
ference — are amazed at the swift advance of this colossal flood. Thinking 
only in terms of the past they advise the bayonet and machine gun and 
other instruments of imperialism as a remedy. Egypt, India, Korea and 
Russia are the fruits of their labors. The floods of anarchy and chaos 
sweep on with irresistible force. The great heart of the common people 
is ablaze with the desire for justice and aflame with the holy fire of liberty. 
A great moral issue is therefore at stake. An issue fundamental in char- 
acter that must be settled and settled right before peace can come either 
in the industrial world or between nations. 

Now the main cause of economic discontent is the merchants' secret 
price mark. For example the labor cost of a seventeen jeweled watch is 
$2.50. The material of the watch is worth the same amount. Such a watch 
is retailed at $25, giving the distributor a profit of $20. The injustice of 
the transaction is hidden from view by the merchants secret price mark. 
This false principle pervades the whole field of commerce and applies 
not only to machine products but to farm products as well. It is this 
false principle, that the service of distribution is a higher service than that 
of production, that is rousing the soul of mankind against the injustice. 
It is this evil that is overcrowding our cities with boys and girls from the 
country, degrading skilled labor, making agricultural pursuits a by word 
and fostering economic unrest and class war. Let us take a few other 
examples to illustrate. Eastern farmers receive five and one-half cents 
per quart for milk which is retailed in the city of Ncm' York at eighteen 
cents a quart, giving the distributor a profit of twelve cents a quart. 
Oyster farmers on the Eastern seaboard receive eighteen cents a quart 
for oysters. These are retailed in Washington at eighty cents a quart. 
Thus the cost of marketing eighteen cents worth of food amounts to the 
staggering figure of sixty-two cents, giving the middleman a profit nearly 
four times in excess of cost price. Here we see that the marketing cost 
of farm products cost from two to ten times the initial cost of food. 
This is the real secret of the high cost of living. This evil is the root 
of all wars, of the exploitation of weak peoples by strong, of unemploy- 
ment, and over crowding in our large cities, and of nearly all the poverty 
and social miseries of our modern civilization. 

Now the Irish Co-operative system ofi'ers a permanent and efficient rem- 
edy for the high cost of distribution, and insures the complete overthrow 

Page Forty-Eight 



of the food trusts, who at present control the forces that are re-making 
the world. The co-operative societies in Ireland, controlled by the Sinn 
Fein clubs took possession of the food supply of the country. Markets 
were established under their control, where the food products were 
bought and sold almost at cost price. The co-operative groups of farmers 
had their own agents who delivered food at the market or local town, 
carrying it by car to the city when the railroads refused their rates. 
Here it was sold to the people in the co-operative stores at cost price 
plus the cost of transportation. The middlemen and railroad profiteers 
were cut out altogether. Thus a little island of scarcely four and one- 
half million people not only supplied all the wants of its own people 
but were able to supply the English markets as well at an enormous 
profit to themselves. The Sinn Fein marketing plau worked with such 
wonderful thoroughness that the Imperialist government of great Britain 
did not disdain to deport the Irish Food Controller to the United States 
as he happened to be an American citizen. A grateful people however 
showed their appreciation of his work by unanimously electing him a mem- 
ber of the Dail Ereann or Republican Parliament. 

The Sinn Fein marketing plan has a counterpart in the Parkview plan 
initiated in Washington where the public schools of the Parkview district 
have been used as collecting centres for food. This is transferred to 
Washington by trucks loaned by the Post Office and the Parkview school 
is used as a distributing centre from which the children carry the family 
supply home from school. By this plan the marketing plan of a bushel 
of potatoes was cut down ninety-two cents, half of which went to the 
farmer and the other half to the consumer. Also the cost of marketing 
a can of oysters was reduced from eighty cents to forty cents, giving the 
farmer double his former price, and reducing the former cost by half 
for the consumer. The Washington plan however is faulty inasmuch as 
it is only local and temporary; v>^hereas the co-operative system extends 
over a whole nation and is as indestructible as the people themselves. 

The economic basis of the Irish Republican Commonwealth is therefore 
founded on direct relations betAveen consumer and producer. This is 
what gives it its stability and power and renders its position unique 
among the nations. George Creel in his book "Ireland's Fight for 
Freedom" has shown that not only can Ireland stand alone as a nation but 
that her trade volume with great Britain is second onl}^ to that of the 
United States. He has shown by official statistics that Ireland economically 
is a unit and that Orangeman and Catholic alike have helped to build up 
the Irish Co-operative Commonwealth. This is the challenge the young 
democracy of the Irish people flings to the peoples of the world today. 
Overthrow the economic autocracies and food trusts and establish the 
reign of the Co-operative Commonwealth. This is the message that young 
Ireland brings to the New World and asks for its support and recognition. 



Page Forty-Nine 



Phases of Modern SiDiritism 

Scientific Spiritism commences with the formation of the Society for 
Psychical Research in London in- 1885. The Spiritualist Movement 
however goes back in varying forms for half a century, and claims 
America for its home, with the Fox sisters as the original mediums. 
The movement has been remarkable because of the incredulity of the 
great leaders of the scientific world in the reality of spirit manifesta- 
tions, to mention only a few such lights as Tyndal, Farraday and Huxley. 

The researches of such distinguished scientists as Professor Richet of 
France, Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge of England, Lambroso 
of Italy and Crawford of Belfast, have finally established beyond all 
question the reality of psychic phenomena. 

After a series of exhaustive experiments, extending over a number of 
years, and attested to by unimpeachable witnesses, they have proved the 
existence of forces hitherto unknown to science and also, what is more 
important — the existence of intelligences similar to, but distinct from our 
own — exerting and directing these forces. 

Since the formation of the Society of Phychical research, which now 
counts among its members some of the leading men in science and phi- 
losophy in Europe and America, numerous other associations have been 
established with similar objects, all over the Continent. A voluminous 
literature has grown up around the subject, and the war has given birth 
to a numerous crop of mediums of which the two most famous are Eusa- 
pia Palladino of Italy and Mrs. Piper of Boston. The works of Professor 
Crawford of Belfast, and the public lectures of Conan Doyle and Sir 
Oliver Lodge in England, have created a world wide interest in spiritism 
at the present time. 

The phenomena of the seance and the condition under which they are 
produced, are now generally well known. You will find that new slates, 
enclosed in a package fresh fro mthe shop, can be written over with an- 
swers to questions put down on paper, not seen by the medium, and still 
remaining in his visitor's pocket. You will find that tables and other 
objects, even persons themselves are raised from the ground absolutely 
without any apparent support. Pianos with locked keyboards are 
played, bells are carried in the air and rung, loud rappings are per- 
formed, and phantom spirits appear at the request of the investigator. 
Professor Crawford of Belfast, by an ingenious series of experiments, 
has shown the direction and force and location of the psychical sub- 
stance, and the entire modus operandi of the operators, as far as physical 
science can show it.. The "astral" matter drawn from the body of the med- 
ium has been photographed, and even the weight of the spirit forms has 
been measured. The occult healing of incurable disease by the "spirit" 
doctor is also a common phenomenon, though as attested by Dr. Raupert, 
the healing process is only apparent but never permanent, and always 
accompanied by loss of faith and moral principles. Many other real 
marvels are worked and their number is increasing daily. 

Page Fifty 



The stupendous problem then that confronts the human mind to-day 
is to discover what are the intelligences which perform these marvel, 
and make the communications vouciied for by them? 

The natural supposition to most people is that they are what they pre- 
tend to be, that is to say departed human beings. But as the researches 
of Raupert and other distinguished investigators have shown that this 
is absurd, and as the spirits themselves have frequently'' declared that they 
impersonate the dead, we have to seek some other explanation. The fre- 
quent resemblance between the spirit forms and some dead person is 
easily explained by the theory of Dr. Raupert that the spirit intelligence 
can abstract the images of the dead relative from the minds of the "sit- 
ters" and implant it on the phantom form. This also explaines why the 
impersonating spirit is never exactly identical with the dead person 
but always lacks some essential features. No human mind can have a 
perfect mental picture of any personality in all its entirety, hence the 
discrepancies. 

However, it is only when we consider the religious system of the 
spiritist movement, as set forth hy Conan Doyle and other writers, that 
we realize the terrible import and immoral tendencies of this pagan cult. 
For the new religious teaching amounts to nothing more than pure 
Pantheism. The spirits are more or less unanimous in declaring that 
there is no heaven, hell or purgatory; that in the world beyond all are 
progressing and improving, that there is no God as we understand it, 
or that he has no personality; that Christ was only a good man, 
possessed of mediumistic powers, and that he offered no sacrifice for 
sin; finally that we need not believe in him in any special way; that 
in any case his teaching was lost in the early church and that our present 
day code of morals is only pure convention. These sordid and palpable 
falsehoods however, have been introduced gradually by the cunning 
spirits, for in Catholic countries, where such ideas might be too rude 
a shock, the teaching of the seances is somewhat on Catholic lines. In 
other countries too, the teaching of the spirits is according to the most 
prevalent religious ideas, departures however being cautiously intro- 
duced. 

In view of these facts, and of the testimony of distinguished investiga- 
tions like Dr. Godfrey Raupert that those who have recourse to the prac- 
tice of spiritism, in every instance end in mental and moral ruin, and 
are finally claimed by premature death or insanity, we are thrown back 
on Catholic theology for a final explanation. Catholic theology teaches 
as a matter of faith that there are non-human spirits that never had a 
body, and this is supported by the testimony of Holy Scripture. More- 
over the fact of diabolic possession, quite common in China in the pres- 
ent day, and occasionally occurring thru all history up to the present 
time, is freely admitted by all who take the trouble to examine the evi- 
dence. We know then that unembodied spirits exist, that are not human 
and not divine, and the fact that some of them are devils is simply un- 
questionable to those who have studied the subject. Although we can- 
not demonstrate conclusively that in seances no genuine communication 
is ever made by dead persons, the evidence is overwhelming that the 
spirits communicating are either devils or lost human souls subject to 
devils in hell. 

Page Fifty-One 



Even the most ardent disciples of the spiritist cult admit the dis- 
cordance of the spirits in their testimony as to life beyond the grave, as 
to the nature of God and of Christ and other important matters, and 
their inability to give conclusive proofs of identity. When one reads such 
books as "The New Revelation" by Conan Doyle, and "Raymond," by 
Sir Oliver Lodge and beholds the state of imbecility to which the prac- 
tice of spiritism has reduced such towering and noble intellects, we are 
forcibly reminded of the words of Holy AVrit : "Let there not be found 
among you any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune telling or 
that seeketh the truth from the dead, for the Lord abhoreth all tliese 
things (Dent. XVIII. II). And finally the warning of St. Paul should 
suffice to prevent us from giving heed to the teaching of Spiritism or in 
his own words "to spirits of error and doctrines of devils" mani- 
fested though they now unquestionably are "in all power, and signs and 
lying wonders." 

The most extraordinary phase however of the Spiritist movement to- 
day is the fact that it makes its chief appeal to the Anglo-Saxon people. 
New England was its original home, and all the fathers of the movement 
(if I might call them so), as well as its most renowned mediums were 
New Englanders. Gradually however as the Anglo-Saxon element 
dwindled, and New England became New Ireland in fact, if not in name, 
the Spiritist movement also dwindled and died out. The laughing, merry 
deeply spiritual Celt would hold no intercourse with the "powers of 
darkness. ' ' But the American medium found a congenial and profitable 
market for his wares in the mother country. Hence in the early Seven- 
ties the movement in England received a tremendous impetus from the 
advent of Daniel Douglas Home, the Davenport Brothers and Henry 
Slade. and since then England has been the home and nursery of Spirit- 
ism. 

While looking over some English papers recently, the writer was as- 
tonished at the extraordinary increase in the number of churches, partic- 
ularly in London, which are dedicated to the spiritist religion. So many 
of the leading intellects of England to-day have declared their belief in 
this so-called revelation that it is a possibility that at no remote period 
this cult will be made the official state religion of the country. The con- 
tinuous stream of literature on the new teaching that is issued daily from 
the British press, the popularity of the sceance among the ruling classes, 
and the claims of writers and scientific leaders that England is ready to 
give the world a new religion, gives us some idea how deeply this dam- 
nable cult has eaten into the soul of this great but arrogant people. 

The Anglo-Saxon race to-day dominates the world. They claim lands 
and peoples, sea, and air, as their natural inheritance. The cry of a Tagore 
in India and of a De Valera in Dublin is lost amid the rattle of 
musketry, the roar of artillery and the haunting spectres of mighty bat- 
tle fleets. An American President mixes with Indian rajahs and tur- 
baned potentates "from darkest Africa" in the glittering halls of English 
Royalty and barters peoples and provinces at the beck and smile 
of "perfidious Albion." The Anglo-Saxon riots over the w^hitened bones 
of 'Dublin martj'^rs and dusky Egyptian heroes ; he has debased and con- 
quered his greatest natural enemy the scientific Teuton, and suc- 
cessfuU.y parried the chastening influence of the great democracy of the 
West by buying its press and many of its leaders, and by sending his 

Page Fifty-Two 



princes to riot, at the public expense, in the storied halls of its chief 
Executive. But it seems that this day of his glory and triumph will 
be short lived, for the Anglo-Saxon race today is in the grip of the "pow- 
ers of darkness ' ' as sure as Rome was in the grip of the Hun, and France 
in the grip of the Prussian — and the penalty is sure and inevitable — 
complete extinction. The Angle-Saxons are a race of materialists whose 
diplomacy is built on falsehood and whose greatness is \msed on might, 
and it would seem that this is the providential way throWgh all history 
for punishing peoples for their lack of faith, moral laxity, and brutal 
treatment of subject races. It was the punishment of the Egyptians 
of old and later of the Chosen People themselves, and the victorious An- 
glo-Saxon of today may likewise be the outcast of the nations of the 
future. Is it any wonder that a few of the great thinking minds of 
England stand aghast before the chaos that threatens to engulf the race. 
It was a consciousness of this moral and spiritual degradation of his 
countrymen, and of this awful punishment that forced the great G. K. 
Chesterton to declare recently to an American authoress that the re- 
vival of Celtic civilization was the only salvation of Western Europe. And 
this is the reason why Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and a few other great 
Englishmen, realize that the recognition of the Irish nation is a spiritual 
necessity for mankind, and that the Celts are the only hope for the 
spiritual regeneration of the English people. The fight for Irish free- 
dom then is not merely a fight for a great political issue, but a religious 
crusade to save the soul of Europe. It was the Celt who gave Europe 
her finest literature and her noblest art; it was the Celt who gave 
Europe in the person of O'Comiell, her highest ideals of democracy, it 
was the Celt in the person of Michael Davitt, who gave England her great 
labor party, and it was the Celt who inspired those high ideals of jour- 
nalism that saved the cause of the Allies. To-day the broken heart of 
Europe is again crying out to the Celt to open his spiritual store-house 
to the starved and -God foresaken nations, and to save those ideals for 
which countless Christian martyrs have fought and bled. No! Indeed 
this fight for Irelands freedom is iio mere political issue, but a cru- 
sade against the "powers of hell and darkness," more momentous in its 
consequences, and more awful in its failure, than any movement since 
the great Roman Pontiff called forth the strength of Christiandom to 
save Christianity from the incursions of the unspeakable Turk. 



Page Fifty-Three 



Men of the Hour 

One of the^saost interesting phenomena in American life is the fact 
in every great crisis of American history, she has developed leaders whose 
genius and peculiar talents helped her to pursue the even tenor of her 
great destiny, in spite of the clashing rivalries of hostile nations, and often 
of the perfidy or partisan politics of some of her own unworthy sons. 
Twice in a century has the American Republic faced destruction and 
twice has she emerged glorious and tritimphant, redeemed by the simple 
genius of a martyred son like Lincoln, or the uncompromising American- 
ism of a Monroe and a Madison. 

Once again this glorious land of freedom is face to face with a mighty 
crisis and the issues are vast and far reaching. Is America to become a 
unit in the chess-board of European diplomacy or continue to be a free 
unfettered nation — a glorious super-race — -blazing the way of light and 
progress for the less favored races of humanity? Are Americans to live 
peaceably in their own land with their inalienable right "to life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness," lending a helping hand to the down-trod- 
den and oppressed of all lands, or become policemen in a world hegemony 
of Anglo-Saxon domination? Are American history and traditions to 
be laid aside and the American Republic to become a super-colony of 
the British Commonwealth, a single unit in a firm of six members, and out- 
voted six to one? The leaders of true American sentiment say "never," 
but their protests are almost drowned by the noise and clamor of a sub- 
sidized press and an unscrupulous oligarchy of wealth. It should, there- 
fore, be of paramount interest to all true Americans to know something 
of the lives of the men who in the past have maintained tlie spirit and 
teachings of the great Washington, and who are today fighting against 
fearful odds for the maintenance of American independence. 

There is one race at least who will not hesitate to state that Judge 
Daniel Cohalan of New York City is the greatest living American and 
the most fearless exponent of true American democracy. Be that as it 
may, Daniel Florence Cohalan of the Supreme Court of New York 
is a leader whose influence and constructive statesmanship is known to 
European fame. There is one European governmeoit at least who would 
like to purchase his power, or silence his tongue forever. 

This distinguished jurist was born in New York of Irish parents in 
1867. He was educated by the Christian Brothers at Manhattan Col- 
lege and graduated in Lnv nt the early age of twenty-one. He has had 
a brilliant career at the New York bar, and in the political life of America. 
He was Democratic delegate to the National Convention at St. Louis in 
1904 and again in 1908. He is the main author of all the city and state 
platforms and of the T'latform sidimitted to the Pemocratic National 
Convention in 1908. He has b^cn a justice of the Supreme Court of 
New York since 1911 and is one of the greatest forensic orators at the 
New York bar. He is the greatest American champion of Irish Freedom 
and has risked his fame and fortune in the cause of Ireland so much so 
that his loyalty to America has been questioned by the Anglophile press 

Page Fifty-Four 



of New York. He was signally vindicated, however, before the courts 
and the leading organs of British opinion in New York eat the dust by 
publicly apologizing for slander. 

Judge Cohalan was chairman of the recent Irish race Convention m 
Philadelphia and was miiinly responsible for the selection of the Dunne- 
Walsh Commission to the Peace Conference and later on to the Irish 
people themselves. His exposition of the "Fourteen Points" was so disa- 
greeable to a distinguished American President that he publicly snubbed 
him on a famous occasion in New York. This action, however, of the Chief 
Executive, only revealed the true greatness of the man, for instead of 
withdrawing with the Irish peace delegation of which he was spokesman, 
and who we'i-e waiting for the President, to interview him on the freedom 
of Ireland, he stated he w^ould willingly swallow the insult, as the cause 
was greater than any one man. , 

Equally famous, tho in another sphere is the celebrated controversialist 
and journalist priest, Dr. Peter Yorke of San Francisco. Dr. Yorke is 
a native of Galway, where he was born in 1864. He was educated m 
Maynooth and at St. Mary's College, Baltimore and later on pursued a 
post-graduate course at the Catholic University, Washington. At the 
end of his course in Washington the brilliant young ecclesiastic was 
offered the chair in Oriental languages, but his bishop wanted him in 
the mission field of California. The meteoric career of Dr. Yorke is a 
matter of Californian history. He has been successively editor of the 
Monitor, Regent of the University of California, Cliancellor of the Arch- 
diocese of San Francisco and Editor of the Leader. He has achieved fame 
as a journalist, an educationalist, a writer, an orator and a labor leader. 
He has revolutionized the labor world of the Pacific coast, and taught the 
worker how to win his rights by organization and peaceful agitation. He 
has made and broken governors and political leaders and he has made 
the Catholic press a living and mighty power in the West. His defense 
of Catholic doctrines against the attacks of ignorant bigots has revealed 
him as one of the greatest controversialist writers of modern times. So 
pleasing was his work to the authorities in Rome that in 1906 he was 
given the degree of Doctor of Divinity by special decree of the Congre- 
gation of Studies. The -Yorke-Wendte Controversy is one of the tradi- 
tions of the golden State. His vitriolic pen has lashed presidents, gov- 
ernments, hierarchies and kings, always in the cause of justice and truth. 
He has molded the public opinion of the Pacific Coast,- and made the 
Irish name to be loved and revered where it was once a by word and a 
shame. As an ecclesil^tic he is acknowledged to have the most construct- 
ive mind in the Church. Yet withal Fr. Peter Yorke, as he is known and 
loved among his own people, is a simple, ascetic, humorpus, sagart aoon, 
a good friend, a kind host, and a true apostle of Christ. He is vice-presi- 
dent of the Friends of Irish Freedom, and is the best informed living 
American on Irish history, literature and traditions. His recent pam- 
phlet, "Ireland and America," is a masterly defense of the Sinn Fein 
policy, and one of the most powerful pieces of invective since Burke's 
speech against Warren Hastings. It is the masterpiece of a genius of 
the pen. 

In the political arena two great names stand out pre-eminent Senator 
Hiram Johnson of California and Senator William Borah of Idaho. Sen- 
ator Johnson is the Nemesis of the Paris Peace conference, and the stormy 

Page Fifty-Five 



petrel of American politics. Pious ministers of the Reformed Churches 
make him a text for their highest flights of sacred eloquence comparing 
him to the Beast of the Apocolypse. Possessed of a mind of rare analytic 
power, at once bold, clear and decisive, he has laid before the American 
people in all its nakedness and subtle chicanery the most colossal fraud of 
all histor^y — the document of the League of Nations. Framed with a cun- 
ning and power, that reveals in every line the master hand of British 
diplomacy he has exposed it, article by article, as one of the most gigantic 
conspiracies of all time to place the nations of the world under the heel 
of Anglo-Saxon domination. 

Senator Hiram Johnson was born in Sacramento in 1866 and was 
educated at the University of California. Hhe studied law in his father's 
^ office and after adniission to the bar, he practiced law in Sacramento till 
1902. He removed to San E'raneisco and was employed as one of a firm 
of lawyers in prosecuting prominent city officials for graft. He was 
elected governor of California in 1911 and again in 1915. He resigned 
in 1917 and was elected United States Senator for California. 

He is the founder of the Progressive Party and has been a candidate 
for the vice-presidencA' of the United States. Destinj^ seems to point to 
Hiram Johnson as the future President and his warm advocacy of the 
Irish cause and fearless independence qualifies him as the one man who 
could solve the most pressing international question of the hour. Lin- 
coln redeemed American honor fo mthe disgrace of the slave trade, and 
Providence seems to4)oint to Hiram Johnson as the future Lincoln who 
will vindicate American honor and principles by acknowledging the Irish 
Republican government at Washington, and freeing forever the last 
victims of militarism. 

Senator Johnson has an able alh" in Senator William Borah of Idaho — 
the lion of the great Northwest. William Edgar Borah was born in Fair- 
field, 111., in 1866. He received his education at the University of Kansas 
and after graduating from law school practiced laAV there for a year. 
He afterward removed to Boise, Idaho, and has lived there since 1891. 
Be became Senator for Idaho in 1903 and still represents that State in 
the Upper House. 

Senator Borah is the most determined and uncompromising enemy of 
the League of Nations, which he wants rejected root and branch. He is 
a powerful orator, and has been received everywhere with popular ova- 
tions. He was the first to expose the infamy of the Shantung settlement, 
on which the fate of the Peace treaty now rests, ^enator Borah is also 
one of the most ardent advocates in the Senate for the acknowledgement 
of the Irish Republic by that body. Borah and Johnson are the two most 
formidable opponents of the Anglo-Saxon clique in the Republic. Sen- 
ator Johnson by his amendment to tlie League of Nations giving America 
the same number of votes as Great Britain has placed the latter faction 
in the horns of a dilemma and practically assumed the final rejection of 
the pact, or if passed, its complete nullification in the minds of the people. 
No charge of hyphenism or pro-Germanism can be brought against these 
two great leaders of American opinion and this fact makes their power 
and influence all the more formidable. 

Another American statesman who is much in the limelight at present 
is Congressman William Mason of Illinois. He introduced a measure in 
Congress asking the United States Government to support the claims of 

Page Fifty-Six 



Ireland to self determination and succeeded in having the motion passed 
by both Houses. Recently he introduced a measure asl^ing the govern- 
ment to appropriate a yearly sum for the payment of an ambassador and 
a consular service to the Irish Republican government in Dublin; The 
measure has been favorably reported on, but its ultimate success will 
depend on the rejection or ratification of the League of Nations by the 
Senate. 

William Ernest Mason was born in New York in 1850 and educated in 
the public schools. He was admitted to the bar in 1872 and was elected 
to the Illinois General Assembly in 1879. He became a Senator in 1881 
and is now generally recognized as one of our ablest statesmen. He has 
helped to make the Irish question an American question and one which 
must be ultimately settled by the voice of the American nation speaking 
thru its representatives at Washington. For this great work he deserves 
the gratitude of all liberty-loving Americans. 

George Creel is the most recent of the public men of the day to throw 
in his lot with the followers of Sinn Fein. His visit to Ireland and his 
study of conditions there roused his American spirit and determined him 
to raise his voice and use his pen in the cause of freedom and fair-play. 
In his recent book, "Ireland's Fight for Freedom," he has analyzed the 
whole Irish controversy and arraigned the British nation before the bar 
of world opinion for high crimes and misdemeanors, and for the most 
brutal and heartless oppression of a single people, for which history 
affords no parallel. He draws his facts principally from English statis- 
tical records and condemns the British Policy in Ireland from the mouths 
of Englishmen themselves. His book has had a tremendous publicity 
thru the American press, and has roused sentiment in the United States 
in favor of Irish Independence, that all the efforts of the propagandist 
press cannot stifle. His book is a landmark in American political history 
and may be compared to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in its magic influence on 
the public opinion of the nation. "Ireland's Fight for Freedom" is 
probably the greatest indictment ever penned of British injustice, hypoc- 
risy and perfidy. 

George Creel is a native of New York, where he was born in 1877; He 
has been successively Editor of the Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, 
and Kansas City Star. He was appointed Chairman of the Committee 
on Public Information by President Wilson in 1917, a position he held 
until the end of the war. He is the author of several books and pamphlets 
and is a popular magazine writer. It is men like George Creel and Floyd 
Gibbons who have saved the honor of American journalism, and upset 
the plans of Northcliffe and his agents to corrupt and destroy the freedom 
of our Press. 

Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis ! Twelve months ago 
Mayor Thompson of Chicago was one of the best hated and best abused, 
public men in America. Yet the voters of Chicago re-elected him as their 
Mayor with a huge majority and the Irisli-American press places him in 
the list of great Americans. The hireling press with the unconscious 
irony of fate, has made William Hale Thompson a National character. 
Even his enemies admit, that right or wrong, William .Hale Thompson 
stands by his principles. He called himself an American Sinn Feiner at a 
time when pro-German and Sinn Fein were considered synonymous. He 
stood up for free speech, when to do so was a crime and tantamount to 

Page Fifty-Seven 



treason. He refused to receive an English Plenipotentiarj^ and heaped the 
honors of the City on a De Valera, and the mob shouts with joy that Big 
Bill Thompson cannot be bought. And who can deny that the great big 
heart of the people is generally right. The Pro-British press of the Re- 
public has voted Mayor Thompson a socialist, a Pro-German and an anti- 
American and Mayor Thompson retorts that these words were coined at 
the Northcliffe headquarters in London, and scattered broadcast by venal 
journalists for American consumption. Since Lord Northcliffe has con- 
fessed the fact, it admits of no further argument. The average American 
worker seems somehow convinced that where a certain section of the 
press pillories a public man, he must have some genuine greatness in him. 
And so Mayor Thompson still repesents America's second greatest city, 
and no titled English lordling, or hireling autocrat, will desecrate its 
sacred precinct as long as William Hale Thompson holds the keys. 

Tho American life has been cursed by the Elliots, and Butlers and 
Lowells, still there is one University president at least who deserves the 
title of a great American. Fr. Frances McCabe, President of the De Paul 
University, Chicago, is known to fame as an orator, a scholar and a 
writer whose controversial abilities are well known in the Presidential 
sanctums of Harvard and Yale. His voice has been raised in stern 
rebuke against the Elliots and Abbots, and the others disciples of Nietzche 
who would reduce the documents, on which our religious beliefs are found- 
ed, to ''scraps of paper." His voice has been raised in the cause of Ireland 
when other voices were still, and his tongue has iDcen eloquent in its de- 
fense, when other tongues were silent. 

The Rev. Francis X. McCabe Avas born in New Orleans in 1872. He 
studied for the Priesthood in Vincentian Order and was ordained at 
St. Mary's Seminary, Mobile. He is Doctor of Laws of the Illinois Col- 
lege of Law and also an. honorary Doctor of Laws of Notre Dame 
University. He has done mission work in Chicago, St. Louis and New 
Orleans. He has acted as President of De Paul University since 1910. 
His most popular pamphlet is ''Are All Men Created Free "and Efmal?" 
and his ablest essay is his answer to Dr. Elliot of Harvard entitled 
"Science and Religion." 

The members of the Irish Peace Commission to Paris, Ifx-Governor 
Edward F. Dunne of Illinois, and Frank P. Walsh of Kansas City, are so 
well known to the American public that biographical sketches "of their 
lives would be superfluous. Frank P. Walsh is the real representative of 
American labor, tho we are blessed with an Enc-lish importation, who lays 
a spurious claim to that title. When the Walsh-Dunne Commission reached 
Paris, the Irish question was a dead issue laid to rest by the gentle idealist 
of the White House lest it should interfere with the diirestion of the little 
Welsh opportunist,— Lloyd George. But Frank P. Walsh, speaking for 
the great proletariat of America, woke that issue into a living, terrible, 
reality, which no president or premier dare defy with impunity. The 
Wal.sh-Dunne Commission was apparently a failure so far as achieving 
any practical results are concerned, but it raised the Irish question from 
English domestic politics to an international issue, nav indeed, to an 
American issue on which stands or falls the honour and lovaltv of America 
to the principles for which she declared war, and spent her blood and 
treasure. And for the first time in history it gave oracular proof to the 

Page Fifty-Eight 



Irish people themselves, by the presence among them cv^f American pleni- 
potentiaries representative of the American people, that America had 
not forgotten what she owed to Ireland, and that the great heart of the 
American people was beating in sympathy with their aspirations, and only 
awaited an opportune time to put their sympathy into practical form. 
The presence in the Emerald Isle of the Walsh-Dunne Commission had 
an electrical effect on the whole nation, and by its indorsement of the 
Republican government in Dublin practically placed the seal of American 
approval upon it. That approval once given can never be withdrawn. 
The Republic has come to stay. 



Pages Fifty-Nine 



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